Lol. I mean sure Apple could be stuck between a US/China tradewar... sure. But the affects on Apple, versus literally any other the business out there, of the trade war are going to be relatively minuscule. There will be thousands of smaller businesses on both sides that are affected and that likely have a much larger aggregate impact than one player-- even if it is Apple.<p>Apple has money and margins, it would not be wise to underestimate the power of those two things in protecting their business. It'd be better if the NYT wrote a piece about a mid-size ($5m to $75m in revenue, 50-500 employees) businesses that can't lobby or fight back and the affect on them.<p>/shrug
>Apple’s primary leverage with the Chinese government is Chinese consumers’ love for Apple products, said Dean Garfield, head of the Information Technology Industry Council, a trade group that represents Apple and other tech companies.<p>That's not Apple's primary leverage in China. It's the millions of workers they indirectly employ there.
Looking at comments above, I find it extremely disheartening about how bitter Americans have become. Why are people celebrating the downfall of Apple - the company that comprises 3.94% of S&P 500, and is probably the single biggest holding of 401K retirement accounts. No American benefits if Apple falls.
The article goes to great length to highlight Apple having lobbyists in Beijing. A fair question is why?<p>Are they so afraid to send the message that they are powerless, and have zero control over them being or not being the next company to suffer Beijing's banhammer?<p>I do remember, back in iPhone 5 days. It took only a single minor customs official to hold their entire initial shipment of few millions units hostage.<p>Back then, it was said their entire legal team was sent to hold watch by the door of the bonded customs zone administrative building.
Oh I'm sure they can lobby/pay their way so they'll be exempt from tariffs and will get even greater advantage over competition with less cash on hand.<p>Apple is really the last corpo we should be worrying about.
Apple could single handedly bring the electronics industry back from the grave in North America. Maybe they should, instead of whining that their easy profits off of communist party handshake deals will vanish.<p>When the president of the PRC visits America, he visits Apple and Microsoft...
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/reporters-notebook/xi-jinping-visit" rel="nofollow">https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/reporters-no...</a>
Trump is many things but a puppet to Apple is not one of them.<p>Their business model will be hurt by his trade war.<p>Maybe they’ll start investing in manufacturing elsewhere to mitigate their dependence on China.<p>Australia has some major rare earth materials that could make it a good choice.