In an open letter to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Apple said that President Trump’s proposed 25% tarrifs on some Chinese imports woud result in higher prices on several Apple products “including AppleWatch, Apple Pencil and Air Pods; Apple computing tools such as Mac Mini; Apple adapters,cables and chargers.” The company argued that “the U.S. will be hardest hit, and that will result in lower U.S. growth and competitiveness and higher prices for U.S. consumers.”
The company said that the U.S. economy will take a greater hit than China
“Given the balance of Apple’s economic footprint, the burden of the proposed tariffs willfall much more heavily on the United States than on China. The traditional method of calculating the U.S. trade balance attributes the entire value of our products to the country where final assembly is located, in most cases China. That calculation, however, does not reflect the immense value that Apple generates in, and returns to, the United States. Every Apple product contains parts or materials from the United States and is made with equipment from U.S.- based suppliers. And every one of these products reflects the labor of 2 million U.S. workers across all 50 states, including our 80,000 direct employees, the 450,000 employees at our 9,000 U.S. suppliers, and 1.53 million U.S. app developers.”