Will Apple’s $500 Billion U.S. Manufacturing Investment Make a Difference for American Workers?

The tech company has leveraged cheap foreign labor and loose environmental regulations by offshoring production of its moneymaker, the iPhone. It’s not likely to stop now.

Apple Inc. announced this past week that it will invest $500 billion over the next four years to expand its U.S. facilities, creating up to 20,000 U.S. jobs. This investment will include the construction of a new advanced manufacturing facility in Houston, Texas, increased funding for Apple’s U.S. Advanced Manufacturing Fund, and the creation of a manufacturing academy in Michigan, in addition to U.S. research and development investment.

Apple’s new Houston factory will manufacture servers that support the company’s personal intelligence system, reshoring production that was previously done outside the United States.

“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,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “From doubling our Advanced Manufacturing Fund, to building advanced technology in Texas, we’re thrilled to expand our support for American manufacturing. 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.”

But there’s an elephant in the room. On the surface, Apple’s expansion plans sound great. Certainly, $500 billion is an impressive sum. However, for a company of Apple’s size, it’s a drop in the bucket. If the Cupertino-based tech giant really wants to get serious about U.S. manufacturing, it would bring its hallmark product, the iPhone, onto assembly lines right here.

“This is unsurprising,” Alliance for American Manufacturing President Scott Paul said on X in reference to Apple’s U.S. expansion announcement. “I’ll start paying attention when Apple shifts mass-market iPhone and/or laptop production to the United States. Apple’s $500 billion U.S. spending plan for the next four years is in line [with] what one might expect it to spend, given its financials.”

Despite its minimal U.S. manufacturing footprint these days, Apple did once have greater Made in America ambitions. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs had hoped to establish a U.S. manufacturing footprint for his company. In 1983, he oversaw the construction of a Silicon Valley factory for Macintosh production, but it closed less than 10 years later. Meanwhile, Apple dove deep into offshoring, chasing cheaper labor through several countries before landing in China.

This isn’t the first time that Steve Jobs’ iconic company has pandered to Made in America to score points while not actually committing to anything. In his first term, President Donald Trump called on Apple to reshore production, which apparently prompted the company to announce plans to build a $1 billion campus in Austin, Texas. Then, in 2021, Apple said it would increase its spending in the U.S. by $80 billion over the next five years.

A similar play seems to be at work with Apple’s most recent U.S. expansion announcement.

The Wall Street Journal crunched the numbers for us in evaluating whether this $5 billion investment marks a change from their previous plans:

“Apple’s new jobs promises are slightly ahead of the company’s recent four-year pace, and the spending pledge is roughly on track with its recent investments, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. The AI server production facility in Houston is new, but the company has yet to spell out how many people it will continuously employ beyond saying it will create thousands of jobs.”

Though the iPhone’s “Designed by Apple in California, Assembled in China” label may see some change as Apple moves more and more of its manufacturing to India amid U.S.-China trade tensions, we’re, unfortunately, a long way off from seeing that label read “Made in USA.”