Will Trump’s Proposed Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum Raise the Cost of Apple Products?

In a bid to protect the financial interests of U.S.-based metal producers, Donald Trump and his administration this week announced plans to impose as much as 10 and 25 percent tariffs on all imported aluminum and steel products, respectively.

While the President is expected to sign the executive order any day now, promising it will remain effective for “a long period of time,” some analysts are cautioning that the move could have lasting implications for companies like Apple — whose products, including iPhone, iPad, and Mac are constructed primarily overseas utilizing these metals in varying quantities.

iPhone X contains approximately 58 grams of stainless steel used in the construction of its frame, according to MacRumors, while the Silicon Valley tech giant’s 15-inch MacBook Pro is comprised by about 740 grams of aluminum.

Apple’s ultra high-end Mac Pro, which is produced right here in the U.S. at Apple’s Austin, Texas-based fabrication plant, is comprised of a whopping 3,660 grams (8 lbs) of aluminum and steel, combined.

While the metal tariffs stand to hit the auto and aerospace industries hardest of all, noted Bloomberg News, it’s not entirely clear yet how they’ll be applied to products like consumer electronics.

If, for argument sake, the tariffs are applied only to raw materials, then Apple would likely be largely unaffected by the move — seeing as the breadth of its products including iPhone, iPad, Macs and accessories are manufactured in the Far East before they’re shipped to the U.S. as finished products.

However, if the duties will also be applied to finished products then Apple’s cost of manufacturing overseas could jump by about 0.2 percent, according to the former Piper Jaffray analyst turned Loup Ventures founder, Gene Munster.

Munster cautioned, however, that said estimates are under the presumption that the tariffs will represent only a “percentage of the steel and aluminum used in the devices.”

Will Apple Products Cost More?

While we’re still waiting on the bits-and-pieces details of the President’s plan and how it will be applied to imported goods, the biggest question is whether or not Apple will be forced to raise the price of its products like iPhone and Mac given the impact of the tariffs (albeit marginal).

Given that production costs are expected to rise by only a fraction of one percent, it would seem highly unlikely. Although Trump has, in the past, publicly sparred with Apple over the fact that its iPhone devices are produced overseas — promising at one point that if they’re not Made in America soon, he’d consider imposing massive tariffs on them, too.