Apple stock sinks after Trump threatens 25% tariff if iPhones aren’t made in the U.S.

An Apple spokesperson declined to comment. Less than 24 hours earlier, the Financial Times reported Apple was finalizing plans for a $1.5 billion iPhone component production center in India.

Trump’s post sent shares of Apple as much as 3% lower — equating to a loss of about $100 billion for the multitrillion-dollar tech giant.

Just minutes later, Trump posted to Truth Social again threatening blanket 50% tariffs on the European Union, saying trade negotiations with the region were “going nowhere.”

That post sent broader markets into deeper negative territory, and the S&P 500 opened some 1% lower, setting the stage for a weekly loss and threatening the market’s recovery over the past month.

Presidents typically avoid giving the appearance of dictating individual companies’ strategies, but Trump has broken with that norm. Instead, he has begun ramping up direct attacks against U.S. companies whose responses to his tariffs he dislikes, including Amazon, Mattel and Walmart.

His targeting of Apple may represent a more serious threat. Trump had already signaled his displeasure with Apple CEO Tim Cook recently.

“I had a little problem with Tim Cook yesterday,” he told members of the media last week. “I said to him, ‘My friend, I treated you very good. You’re coming here with $500 billion, but now I hear you’re building all over India.’ I don’t want you building in India.”

In an appearance on Fox News, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent elaborated on Trump’s missive saying he was “trying to bring back precision manufacturing to the U.S.

“And I think that one of our greatest vulnerabilities are these … this external production, especially in semiconductors, and a large part of Apple’s components are in semiconductors. So we would like to have Apple help us make the semiconductor supply chain more secure. What I found interesting in Saudi Arabia last week was that the president called out Tim Cook for not being there.”

As the impact of Trump’s tariffs, which continue to include a 10% blanket levy and effective tariffs of some 40% on Chinese goods, has come sharper into view for U.S. firms, Trump has increasingly taken aim at their responses.

Last week, the president slammed Walmart for saying it was likely to raise prices on shoppers within weeks, demanding that the retail giant “EAT THE TARIFFS.”

The conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board derided that move as a potentially “Marxist” effort to tell a company how to run its business, “along with a vague, implicit threat of retribution.” It said Trump was going “full Kamala Harris,” referring to his 2024 campaign rival’s anti-price-gouging plan, and added, “How would Mr. Trump react if Congress told him how much his family could charge for a Mar-a-Lago fee?”

Walmart subsequently issued a statement saying it would work to keep prices low “as low as we can for as long as we can given the reality of small retail margins.” In the days that followed, several other major consumer brands have appeared to tiptoe around pricing matters. Target said Wednesday that charging customers more would be its “very last resort.”

Earlier this month, Trump threatened Barbie maker Mattel with a “100% tariff” on its toys if it did not move production to the U.S. Mattel told CNBC that it would still likely be forced to adjust prices in the U.S. and that it didn’t foresee being able to reshore its manufacturing.

And last month, administration officials called a report that Amazon would begin labeling tariffs costs at checkout a “hostile and political act,” with Trump personally calling founder Jeff Bezos to complain. Hours later, Amazon sought to downplay the scope of its plan — and then said it was off the table entirely.

As for Apple, at least half of its iPhones are currently made in China. In April, Reuters reported that Apple had begun making plans to shift all iPhone production to India by the end of 2026.

New iPhones are currently priced around $1,199. Wall Street analysts have offered up various estimates for what an American-made iPhone would cost, ranging from $1,500 to $3,500, depending on how much of its supply chain Apple is ultimately able to reshore.

In a note to clients Friday following Trump’s post, Wedbush Securities managing director Dan Ives, who first gave the $3,500 estimate in April, called the idea of U.S.-made phones a “fairy tale.” He said he believed Apple would continue to attempt to negotiate with the administration to come to a resolution.