The President of the United States, Donald Trump, has threatened Apple this Friday with a 25% tariff on all iPhones that are not manufactured within the country, resulting in a drop of over 3% in the company’s pre-market trading.
“I informed Tim Cook from Apple a while ago that I expected the iPhones sold in the United States of America to be manufactured and built in the United States, not in India or anywhere else. If that is not the case, Apple will have to pay a tariff of at least 25% to the U.S.,” he stated in a post on Truth Social.
Last week, Trump claimed to have a “small problem” with Apple’s alleged plans to move the production of iPhones sold in the US from China to India. However, the tech company had already committed months ago to investing $500 billion in the United States over four years.
On the other hand, the North American president has also threatened the European Union today with a 50% tariff on all its goods starting on June 1st, considering that transatlantic negotiations “are not going anywhere.”
The European Commission has chosen not to comment and has referred to the call that the Commissioner for Trade and Economic Security, Maros Sefcovic, and the US Trade Representative, Jamieson Greer, will have in a few hours. This call was scheduled before the alleged new tariffs were revealed.
Wall Street falls at the opening due to Trump’s tariff threats
The main benchmark indices of the US stock exchanges opened on Friday with declines in a day marked by Donald Trump’s threats to impose a 50% tariff on all products from the European Union and a 25% tariff on all iPhones sold in the US that are not manufactured in the country.
The industrial Dow Jones index, which closed flat yesterday, has started today’s trading session with a 0.91% decline, reaching 41,479.81 points. Subsequently, the Nasdaq has opened the session with a 1.28% decrease, reaching 18,684.01 points.
In the case of the S&P500, the most representative index of the North American stock market, it was down 0.98% within minutes and dropped to 5,784.83 points due to tensions with one of the main trading partners of the United States and one of its most prominent technology companies.
In this sense, Apple, which was losing more than 3.5% in pre-market trading, falls by 2.21% at around 15:35 Spanish peninsular time, to $196.92.