

Once again, the offhand babblings of the Trumpster are treated like meticulously groomed campaign announcements — while speaking to a crowd at Liberty University, Donald Trump mentioned that he would get Apple to “build their damn computers and things in this country instead of other countries.” Make sure to watch the relevant clip, as well as (if you are insane like me) the excruciatingly long full video. In the full speech he goes on to say more generally that, “We gotta bring back the jobs from China, we gotta bring back the jobs from Japan, and all these countries that are ripping us off. And we’re gonna do that. And we are gonna do that.”

Are we, really?

To start, there’s the specific idea of (we have to assume) taxing and/or incentivizing Apple so that it makes better financial sense to build in America than elsewhere. What form might this tax or incentive take? Well, perhaps Trump’s own statements in this very same speech can shed some light on that, in the form if a fairly stilted hypothetical conversation between Trump and a nonexistent Ford executive.

trump apple 4

Could these workers be Americans, if Trump became President? No.

“If you go forward,” he claims he might hypothetically say, “that’s fine. But for every car, truck, and whatever else you’re building, you are going to pay a 35% tax every time it crosses the border. We have to! Or we’re not gonna have a country left — everyone’s ripping us!” Ford has been a frequent target of Trump’s rants, seemingly triggered by the relocation of a plant in Mexico. So, despite that incentives would likely be more effective, we’re most likely talking about an import tax on Apple’s “damn computers” as an incentive to build them within US borders and avoid the fee. This will most likely be passed on to consumers, of course.

But what if it worked, and Apple did start the process of moving manufacturing to the United States? It’s unlikely Trump could see the process through, even as a two-term President. As The Guardian points out, China has invested enormously in their manufacturing sector, to the point that the United States just isn’t equipped to take on the sheer scale of Apple’s business. It could be, someday — but Trump certainly hasn’t proposed any such investment.

Apple CEO Tim Cook on a recent episode of 60 Minutes.

Apple CEO Tim Cook on a recent episode of 60 Minutes.

More damningly, China has invested heavily in vocational training for specifically the kinds of electronics manufacturing jobs Apple needs most. Apple CEO Tim Cook took to 60 Minutes to argue that “You can take every tool and die maker in the United States and probably put them in a room that we’re currently sitting in. In China, you would have to have multiple football fields.” Again, while Trump makes the same lightweight references to the evils of student debt as every other candidate, he has no plan to produce the people who would be needed to put his “plan” into action.

But, does that matter? As with most other things that escape Trump’s lips, this is simultaneously a careless comment and well-calculated gambit. The specifics, and certainly the end result, of this “plan” are meaningless, because he’s never even thought about them. But with Trump, the target is the key. The fact is that while many people love Apple, many people also hate them, and their business practices are a big part of the reason. It’s not just employment, but a perception that Apple has no sense of loyalty to the country that spawned it, seen most starkly in its place as the poster-boy for the recently repealed Double Irish tax plan, though it was actually quite widely used by American tech super-corps.

trump apple 3

Apple supplier Foxconn infamously put up nets in response to a rash of suicides among low-paid Chinese workers.

So, this is likely just another example of Trump picking an opponent that’s unpopular with his base, and trusting that his supporters’ satisfaction at seeing that target attacked with override any questions about the specifics of the attacks themselves. I think it’s a fallacy to say that anybody really thinks Trump was putting forward a proposal, or making a real campaign promise.

As has been pointed out many times before, this conversion to economic protectionism is quite hypocritical in the context of the past behavior of Trump’s own companies. A hardcore capitalist like Trump might argue that it’s his obligation as a politician to make the rules more just, and his obligation as a businessman to maximize profits within those rules, regardless of whether he thinks they’re the right rules for America. Like the high-minded philosophy of a defense lawyer, the businessman is supposed to be ruthlessly loyal to the shareholders, the President to the electorate.

But, does anybody really believe Donald Trump lives his life according to principle?