Apple’s laundry list of problems got even longer Friday morning, and Jim Cramer warned it could play right into the hands of an overseas competitor. By the afternoon, the story changed. Early Friday morning, Trump ramped up his pressure on Apple, which has been considering moving more iPhone production to India to lessen its reliance on China, given the long-simmering trade tensions between Washington and Beijing. “I have long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their [iPhones] that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else. If that is not the case, a Tariff of at least 25% must be paid by Apple to the U.S.,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. Shortly after Trump’s post, Jim Cramer said during Friday’s Morning Meeting that Apple having to raise prices would be a gift to smartphone rivals such as South Korea’s Samsung, according to Jim. “You don’t want to have a second-rate competitor suddenly become the real powerhouse, and that’s what would happen with Samsung,” Jim said. Earlier Friday, Jim called an Apple-specific tariff “a Samsung subsidy,” adding that “Samsung is the winner here.” Friday afternoon, in comments from the Oval Office, Trump said Samsung and other smartphone makers would be subject to the same tariff as Apple. “Otherwise, it wouldn’t be fair,” the president added. If Apple were hit with the higher tariffs, it would likely need to raise prices on the iPhone — its biggest money maker — to protect its profits. An alternative would be keeping prices steady and absorbing a hit to margins, which investors usually do not want to see. In a note to clients Friday, Wells Fargo estimated that Apple would need to hike prices anywhere between $100 to $350 per device in order to maintain its margins. Apple has for months been in the crosshairs of the White House, as Trump tries to remake global trade and bring more manufacturing back to the U.S. with aggressive tariffs on imports. In particular, Trump and members of his administration have frequently pushed for a made-in-America iPhone; most are made in China today. It has put Apple CEO Tim Cook in a difficult position — and forced Apple investors to reckon with a new set of risks on top of the business disruption that may come from the artificial intelligence race and legal battles. Shares of Apple fell nearly 3% on Friday as investors reacted to Trump’s latest criticism of the tech giant. The stock didn’t seem to get any boost from Trump saying that rival smartphone makers would be hit with the same levies. Friday’s saga is yet another reason why Apple has become the portfolio’s “most worrisome stock,” Jim said Friday, echoing what he said during the Club’s Monthly Meeting on Wednesday. Others on Wall Street are concerned about the financial implications of Trump’s new threat because relocating iPhone production to the U.S. cannot happen overnight. What Trump wants Apple to do is “nigh impossible” for the company in the near term, Rosenblatt Securities analyst Barton Crockett argued Friday morning. “To make iPhone at scale in this country is not going to happen in an investable time frame – and certainly not while Trump is president. To do this to a company that has been operating under the rules, creating an iconic business for a long time, it’s just hard to believe that this comes to pass,” Crockett said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” He continued, “I would suspect Apple is working really hard on what they can offer. They can’t make all their iPhones here, but perhaps they can start building something beyond what they have today to take the pressure off.” Apple has made its high-end Mac Pro computer in Austin, Texas, since 2013 . AAPL YTD mountain Apple (AAPL) year-to-date performance Last week, Trump criticized Apple’s plan to make more iPhones in India — but at that time, he did not include any threats of tariffs. Jim said in response that Trump’s pressure campaign on Apple may not end unless Cook announces a plan to make some iPhones to the U.S. Trump’s latest demands to bring manufacturing to onshore come less than a day after the Financial Times reported that Foxconn , one of Apple’s main iPhone assemblers, plans to spend $1.5 billion on growing its India facilities. This is part of Apple’s years-long push to grow its presence in emerging markets in an effort to diversify its supply chain out of China, which, in addition to being its primary iPhone production hub, is its second-largest market for revenue. In recent years, Apple has also upped its production of wearable products like the Apple Watch in Vietnam. Trump and Cook met at the White House on Tuesday, the news outlet Politico reported . That meeting between Trump and Cook could be part of the administration’s effort to bring “precision manufacturing” back to the country, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News on Friday, though he acknowledged he was not present for it. “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,” Bessent said. Before all of this, Apple had seemingly tried to get Trump’s good side. Cook, who has been widely praised for cultivating a friendly relationship with Trump during his first term, donated $1 million to the president’s second inauguration fund earlier this year. Shortly after that, Apple said it would put $500 billion into U.S. development over the next four years. None of this has been enough to appease the president, though, and it has been reflected in Apple’s stock performance in 2025. Shares have fallen over 21% year to date, including Friday’s move. Apple’s problems extend far beyond Trump’s trade war. The company’s lucrative agreement with former Club holding Alphabet to make Google Search the default search engine on iPhones could fall victim to the Justice Department’s antitrust actions against Alphabet. That arrangement was worth $20 billion in revenue for Apple in 2022. Meanwhile, the company’s AI suite, Apple Intelligence, continues to underwhelm. Management continues to push back the rollout of these features, which Jim once saw as a key reason for a much-needed iPhone upgrade cycle. With all of this in mind, the Club still plans to stick it out in the stock — but there’s no denying that it’s been harder and harder to defend this stock. Jim already retired his long-held “own, don’t trade” thesis on Apple in April. We trimmed some of our position shortly after, as well. But, as Jim said Thursday, even before this latest twist, “They still have the best product. .. Right now, everything is going wrong, and yet I am not backing away. I just don’t want to buy [anymore].” (Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust is long AAPL. See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust’s portfolio. 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Tim Cook, chief executive officer of Apple Inc., center, speaks while U.S. President Donald Trump, right, listen during an American Workforce Policy Advisory board meeting in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, D.C.
Al Drago | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Apple’s laundry list of problems got even longer Friday morning, and Jim Cramer warned it could play right into the hands of an overseas competitor. By the afternoon, the story changed.
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