Apple CEO Tim Cook to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on bringing iPhone manufacturing to the US: I don’t like to employ all these people foreign, but I need to have …

Apple CEO Tim Cook told Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick that advanced robotics technology would be the key catalyst for bringing iPhone manufacturing to American soil, according to comments Lutnick made in a CNBC interview.
“I talked to Tim Cook the other day and said, ‘When are you going to bring the iPhone?’ When are you going to bring the iPhone manufacturing here?” Lutnick revealed. “He said, ‘I need to have the robotic arms to do it at a scale and precision that would allow me to bring it here.'”
The conversation comes as Apple secured a temporary exemption from President Trump’s aggressive new tariffs on Chinese imports, which could have potentially increased iPhone Pro prices to over $2,000, according to Wedbush Securities estimates.
Cook’s direct approach with the Trump administration appears to have yielded dividends, with the Commerce Department announcing last week that electronic products would be temporarily exempted from the 145 percent tariffs imposed on Chinese goods, The Washington Post reported. The exemption helped Apple’s stock recover approximately 7 percent after initial losses.

“He wants to build it here, he’s going to build it here,” says US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on American-made iPhones

While Apple has already committed to spending $500 billion on domestic production of AI systems and supercomputers, moving iPhone assembly to the United States represents a more complex challenge.
“He wants to build it here, he’s going to build it here, and Americans are going to be the technicians who drive those factories,” Lutnick emphasized during the CNBC interview. “They’re not going to be the ones screwing components in.”

Apple has already begun diversifying its manufacturing base beyond China, with approximately 20 percent of iPhones now assembled in India, according to The Information. The Financial Times reports that Apple has a plan to source all iPhones sold in the US from India by the end of 2026.
Reuters reported that the company has chartered six cargo flights carrying approximately 1.5 million devices from India to the United States since March.
However, Chinese authorities appear to be resisting this shift. According to The Information, approval times for exporting iPhone manufacturing equipment from China to India have increased from two weeks to as long as four months.

Lutnick says iPhones being made in the US will be the start of AI industrial revolution

Lutnick framed the potential return of iPhone manufacturing as part of a broader revival of American manufacturing, albeit with a different employment model than traditional factory work.
“Americans are going to work in factories just like this in great high-paying jobs. They’re going to be trained as technicians, and they’re going to have the new industrial revolution—let’s call it the AI industrial revolution,” Lutnick said in the CNBC interview.
When pressed about potential price increases, Lutnick rejected the notion that domestically produced iPhones would necessarily cost significantly more. “People just take my statements out of context,” he insisted.
Trump acknowledged his involvement in helping Apple navigate the tariff situation. “I speak to Tim Cook,” Trump told reporters Monday, according to The Washington Post. “I helped Tim Cook recently, and that whole business.”
Cook’s relationship with Trump has become a model for other tech executives. The Post reported that since Trump’s election, tech leaders including Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Sundar Pichai have followed a similar approach, meeting privately with the president at the White House or at Mar-a-Lago.
For Apple, manufacturing diversification represents both economic and security strategy. As Lutnick noted, Cook “doesn’t like to employ all these people overseas. That’s his biggest risk—what if there was a strike in China? All of a sudden he loses production.”
While White House spokesman Kush Desai denied that the administration granted “any exemptions” specifically to benefit Apple, the temporary relief gives the company time to accelerate its manufacturing pivot amid escalating global trade tensions.