Emma Roth, reporting for The Verge:

Apple is putting another $100 billion toward expanding manufacturing in the US as the company responds to pressure from President Donald Trump to manufacture more of its products in the US. The move builds upon the company’s initial plan to invest $500 billion in the US over the next four years, and includes a new American Manufacturing Program that the company says will bring more of Apple’s “supply chain and advanced manufacturing” to the US.

As part of its investment, Apple has agreed to an expanded partnership with Corning to manufacture “100 percent” of the iPhone and Apple Watch cover glass in Kentucky. It will also work with Samsung at its chip fab in Austin, Texas, “to launch an innovative new technology for making chips, which has never been used before anywhere in the world,” according to Apple’s press release.

Apple’s Houston-based server factory, which it announced earlier this year, will begin mass production starting in 2026, while Apple is also expanding its data center in Maiden, North Carolina.

Continuing coverage from Marcus Mendes, reporting for 9to5Mac:

During today’s Oval Office announcement of the American Manufacturing Program (AMP), a visibly nervous Tim Cook presented President Trump with a “unique unit of one” piece of Kentucky-made glass, mounted on a 24k gold stand crafted in Utah.

As the press briefing began, Cook stood alongside Trump and in front of a pair of easels displaying the projected returns from Apple’s $600 billion investment in U.S. manufacturing over the next four years.

He also held a big, white box, with a huge Apple logo down the center. Inside, as Cook explained, was a gift for Trump:

“This glass comes from the Corning line. It’s engraved for President Trump. It’s a unique unit of one. It was designed by a U.S. Marine Corps corporal, a former one, that works at Apple now. And the base comes from Utah. And it’s 24-karat gold.”

Some background: After Wednesday’s Oval Office spectacle, the Trump regime announced that it would expand semiconductor tariffs to 100 percent — i.e., the price of semiconductor imports would double — but quickly exempted Apple from the imports. Apple doesn’t import that many semiconductors relative to its competitors since iPhones, iPads, and Macs are manufactured outside of the United States, but it does import some, especially for its fabrication plant in Arizona and for its data centers, including the one in North Carolina. The real test would be if Trump rescinds the 25 percent tariff that would apply to iPhones — a decision he hasn’t made yet. Regardless, the exemption Cook earned for Apple on Wednesday is a massive “win” for Apple’s data centers, which is why he highlighted the new Houston server factory and expansions to the Maiden data center.

All of this ignores the elephant in the room: The bribes are working to some extent. Apple has promised increased investment in the United States for literally decades, yet very few projects have come to fruition. When Cook invited Trump, during his first term, to tour the Mac Pro assembly plant in Austin — even gifting Trump the first 2019 Mac Pro assembled in the United States — he promised all Mac Pro production would eventually take place domestically. The new M-series Mac Pros are, to my knowledge, assembled in Vietnam, along with the rest of the Apple silicon Mac lineup. The response from the Trump propagandists would be to blame this on former President Joe Biden, but that isn’t aligned with reality. Apple can’t manufacture even low-scale products, like the Mac Pro, profitably in the United States. All it has done for the past decade is make empty promises to boneheaded politicians who don’t know better. (The same goes for Apple’s North Carolina office, which is still on hold.)

In my eyes, what’s working is not the increased investment, but the love affair between the only gay man who runs a company as important as Apple and a transphobe. If it weren’t for the $1 million bribe Cook sent Trump at the beginning of his term, we wouldn’t be here. There would be no Oval Office meeting, no kissing of the ring, and no 24-karat gold glass disk. If Cook didn’t give Trump that Mac Pro in 2019 after bashing the first Trump administration’s immigration regime just two years earlier, there’d be no relationship between Cupertino and Washington. Ultimately, it’s not the investments — which never bore out either in Trump’s first term or the Biden administration — that led to Cook and Trump’s coziness, but the bribes. I guarantee you that if there weren’t a promise of a present for the president, the Trump tariffs would still be on. Trump, first and foremost, prioritizes his economic and political gain over any other metric.

The fact that these bribes have sway in the Trump camp is perhaps the only thing more concerning than if they didn’t matter. If bribes weren’t a way to get to the Oval Office, markets would come crashing down. The only economic stability the United States has is thanks to the effectiveness of fealty. When it came out in April that bribes may not work to stop the tariffs from throwing the economy into shambles, the stock market collapsed. But once the Trump regime clarified that his excellency would do some masterful “deal negotiation” (i.e., accept bribes), the markets calmed down. There’s only one other (large) government that works exactly like this: Russia. Before the Ukraine invasion, the only reason the ruble had any value was because it was an open secret that bribing President Vladimir Putin would lead to some amount of leeway in the regime. If that opening didn’t exist, the Russian economy would’ve collapsed. (And it did collapse after the Ukraine invasion because everyone realized no amount of bribes would make Putin stop bombing children’s hospitals.)

Cook has fundamentally lost what it takes to be Apple’s leader, and it’s been that way for at least a while. He’s always prioritized corporate interests over Apple’s true ideals of freedom and democracy. If Trump were in charge when the San Bernardino terrorist attack happened, there’s no doubt that Cook would’ve unlocked the terrorist’s iPhone and handed the data over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. If Trump wants ICEBlock or any of these other progressive apps gone from the App Store, there’s no doubt Apple would remove them in a heartbeat if it meant a tariff exemption. For proof of this, look no further than when Apple in 2019 removed an app that Hong Kong protesters used to warn fellow activists about nearby police after Chinese officials pressured Apple. ICEBlock does the same thing in America and is used by activists all over the country — if removing it means business for Cook, it’ll be gone before sunrise.

In some way, it isn’t fair to solely put the blame on the Trump regime. It’s a democratically elected government despite its anti-democratic actions. (See: Wednesday, when the Library of Congress deleted a part of Article 1 from the Constitution.) The Apple C-suite, however, isn’t democratically elected. It has a responsibility to its users first, shareholders second, and employees third. If America’s crown jewel abdicates responsibility to protect democracy, it’s failing its users, shareholders, and employees. Apple is failing the United States of America. While Trump’s 2024 election was an own goal by the vastly uneducated American public, Apple’s abdication of rectitude under Cook’s leadership is unconscionable. Nobody asked Apple to capitulate to dictators — Cook’s subservience toward Trump is unforced. The years of Apple’s reputation as a company that respects democracy, the rule of law, human rights, sustainability, and privacy have been squandered. That should be alarming to anyone who cares about Apple, including its employees, users, and shareholders.