23 May 2025
If you are covering Donald Trump’s threat to impose a 25% tariff on iPhones made outside of the US, please find below a comment from Ben Barringer, global technology analyst at Quilter Cheviot:
“Apple has been at the eye of the tariff storm ever since Donald Trump announced his intentions on global trade. The tech giant has a deeply ingrained supply chain in Asia, and that is going to be very difficult for it to extricate itself from. Indeed, Apple hoped it could get around the worst of the tariffs by shipping iPhone products to the US from India and Vietnam. Unsurprisingly the US administration has not looked kindly on such tactics and is now threatening new tariffs.
“Given the deal with China, Apple will have been hoping that tensions with the US government would begin to ease, but this has appeared to be a false dawn. To date, Apple have said it is not seeing any stockpiling or pull forward of sales, as well as no change to its pricing strategy. Given the renewed rhetoric coming from Trump, this position may need to change, and greater consideration given to either upping prices, moving supply chains or ultimately both.”
