Apple soars as Trump pauses tariffs — but there’s a huge China issue here

Apple stock jumped as much as 12% today, soaring higher after the announcement that President Trump would put a 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs on its trading partners. The problem for Apple is that the news came with a big exception: “Based on the lack of respect that China has shown to the World’s Markets, I am hereby raising the Tariff charged to China by the United States of America to 125%, effective immediately,” Trump wrote. Confirmation yesterday of a 104% tariff had previously sent the stock down.

Analysts believe Apple would be the hardest hit by reciprocal tariffs, since it makes so many of its products overseas, especially in China: about 90% of iPhone production is currently done there. And despite what the Trump administration has said, tariffs would be unlikely to make Apple move iPhone production entirely to America. As Wedbush analyst Dan Ives put it today, the US supply chain to do so “does not exist.”

Apple could potentially move final assembly here, but many parts would still have to be sourced overseas, mostly from China, BofA said today — and even still, that small change would drive up the cost of producing an iPhone by 90%.

A 90-day pause isn’t going to change Apple’s China problem.

So we’ll see where this ends up.