USA is refuge for manufacturing
Red China, England and Europe are making America the safe place for factories
Tim Cook, the head of Apple, met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in mid-December and paid $1 million to attend the inauguration.
This showed the last 8 years have rendered Obama irrelevant unlike 2017 when everyone was too afraid of him to suck up to the new president, as they usually do. In 2025, they are little Dysons and Hoovers as they seek a seat near President Trump.
On Thursday, Cook reported to Trump at the White House before spilling the news on Monday: Apple is coming back to the USA.
Quartz announced, “Apple will invest $500 billion in the U.S. with a focus on AI.”
That’s a half-trillion dollars or almost what the federal government blows each month.
The story said, “The Cupertino, California-based technology giant plans to open a 250,000-square-foot manufacturing plant in 2026 that will produce servers, hire thousands of workers across a variety of fields, and launch a new education initiative. Apple also said it was committed to expanding its data centers across the U.S., which are vital for its ambitious AI plans.”
Cook’s press release said, “We are bullish on the future of American innovation, and we’re proud to build on our long-standing U.S. investments with this $500 billion commitment to our country’s future.
“And we’ll keep working with people and companies across this country to help write an extraordinary new chapter in the history of American innovation.”
Apple said its $500 billion investment plan will include work with suppliers across the U.S. and production of content for its Apple TV+ media streaming service in 20 states, as well as new hires and research and development spending.
Apple said it “remains one of the largest U.S. taxpayers, having paid more than $75 billion in U.S. taxes over the past five years, including $19 billion in 2024 alone.”
The tech giant also said it would double its U.S. Advanced Manufacturing Fund to $10 billion from $5 billion currently, create a new manufacturing academy in Michigan, and grow its R&D investments in the U.S. to support cutting-edge fields such as silicon engineering.
Largest ever capital spend in the US in company history
· $500B into US Economy over 4 Years ~ +45% from 2021 Announcement during Biden term
· 20,000 New Jobs
· New Houston AI Server Factory
· New Detroit Manufacturing Academy
· Doubling R&D Fund to $10B
This is great news, particularly the Detroit angle. Texas is growing. Michigan ain’t.
Apple began moving to Red China 30 years ago for cheap labor and possible access to the market that promised to be larger than America’s someday. The problem was twofold.
First, Apple took the American market for granted.
Second, Apple overlooked the fact that Red China is a communist country that sooner or later will simply nationalize Apple’s factories. I always wondered why the farmers dined with the pigs at the end of Animal Farm.
Now I know why. The farmers stopped calling them pigs just as we dropped the Red from the name and pretended China had changed. It hadn’t. We just lowered our standards.
The news stories on the half-trillion investment focused on tariffs but the real worry for Apple may be having to share its secrets of technology with Chairman Xi and his henchmen.
But Red China is not the only problem Apple faces.
Reuters reported, “Apple is scrapping its most advanced security encryption feature for cloud data in Britain, the company said on Friday, an unprecedented response to government demands for access to user data.
“The change affects a feature called Advanced Data Protection (ADP), which extends end-to-end encryption across a wide range of cloud data. Apple said it is no longer available in Britain for new users, with those who try to turn it on receiving an error message starting Friday, and that current users will eventually need to disable this security feature.
“The move means iCloud backups in Britain will no longer have that level of encryption, allowing Apple to access in certain cases user data that it otherwise could not, such as copies of iMessages, and hand it over to authorities if legally compelled. With end-to-end encryption enabled, even Apple cannot access the data.”
The thought police in England will have access to your Apple. That 1983 song Every Breath You Take is now the national anthem. That it was a hit for The Police was prophetic.
Every single day
And every word you say
Every game you play
Every night you stay
I'll be watching you
Oh, can't you see
You belong to me?
However, Tim Cook’s removal of ADP in England is a blow for freedom, for as Stephen Green pointed out, “Compliance would have meant giving UK authorities a backdoor into any iPhone or iPad anywhere in the world.”
You are darned tootin’, bet your last Fig Newton that the CIA would finance this surveillance.
Apple should just Brexit England because with one wrong step, the government will be trying to extradite him to some British court for some wrongful thought by one of the last living actual Brits on that Island of Doom.
The Western world is turning back the clock to 1984.
Days before the second inauguration of Donald Trump, NBC reported, “The European Commission said on Friday it was stepping up its investigation into whether Elon Musk’s social media network X breached EU rules on content moderation with requests for information and an order for it to retain relevant documents.
“As part of its investigation launched in December 2023, the EU executive said it was requesting X to provide by Feb. 15 internal documentation about its recommender system that makes content suggestions to users, and any recent changes made to it.”
That’s right, our NATO allies are now frenemies who want to boss around American companies on U.S. soil. That gets my dander up.
Trump keeps talking about a Golden Era. Tariffs will nudge companies to return to the homeland, as will his corporate tax breaks. But the bottom line isn’t the bottom line; it’s freedom. America has it, Red China does not and Europe is throwing its away.
The biggest benefit of dumping half the federal staff is not the money saved on salaries. I mean, $150 billion is nice but what what can you do with that? Buy a pair of earrings?
The biggest impact will be slowing the ability of the bureaucracy to promulgate more regulations and restrictions on commerce. We have an abundant reserve of oil and coal and all sorts of other resources. So do Saudi Arabia, Russia, Canada and Red China. But we also have the greatest resource in the world.
Freedom.
Obama wanted to take it back. We said no, we will Trump you on that and we did. The police state awoke to its worst nightmare on the morning after the election. Cook woke up to an opportunity to invest a half-trillion bucks. That’s why he’s rich and I trust that’s why some of the policemen in the police state are headed to jail.
My cat added that last choice.
For the third time in a many days I find myself commenting that Europe seems like a dead man walking. Imagine caring what happens there, especially since they brought this on themselves. As for Tim Cook and Apple, I’ll be more excited when 1) they onshore manufacturing for their bread and butter iThings, and 2) I see the actual receipts for the expenditures they’re promising to make. For instance, I suspect they might have some challenges staffing up those Detroit projects from the local talent pool. The poll question answer should’ve been the third Dan, Bongino, named as Deputy Director of the FBI only 5 days after the confirmation of Kash Patel as FBI Director. Both of them documented corrupt lawfare run by the Deep State in their published books - Kash from inside the wire and Dan from the outside. Both appear to be overzealous Boy Scouts (and in Kash’s case, with a big chip on his shoulder). The freakoutery has so far been great. I look forward to great things from this duo.
Hard choices in the poll today. Crocodile tears from Joy Reid, a POS liberal General out of work, and more worthless government employees gone. Impossible choices. The sign of the new times…😁