Politics
'Nowhere to hide.' How Apple and others in Silicon Valley are bracing for Trump tariffs
SAN FRANCISCO — The iPhone is a quintessentially 21st century product — Californian in its creation and design and now enmeshed in the global economy.
Apple makes most of its iPhones in China, though in recent years the Cupertino-based company has made more of its products in India, Vietnam and other nations. In all, the tech giant says it relies on more than 50 countries and regions to put AirPods, iPads and MacBooks in the hands of consumers.
Now, that global supply chain is under siege.
This week, President Trump said he would impose a baseline 10% tariff on imports from all countries on Saturday. His administration also added tariffs of 34% on China, 46% on Vietnam and 26% on India.
“Apple has nowhere to hide,” said Eric Harwit, professor of Asian studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. “No matter where they’re making their technology, they’re going to be suffering, they’re going to see higher costs.”
Trump’s sweeping tariffs have rattled both investors and some of the world’s most valuable tech companies that have fueled the global economy and Silicon Valley’s growth. They’ve also raised questions about whether these global businesses will pass the higher costs on to consumers or slash their payrolls.
Apple has been especially hard hit. Its stock plunged more than 9% on Thursday and dropped another 7% on Friday to close at $188.38.
Share prices of other tech titans, including Google parent company Alphabet, Meta, chipmaker Nvidia and Amazon, also saw big declines, causing the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite to fall 5.8% on Friday — putting it more than 20% below its record set in December.
The unease reflects worries among investors that the tariffs could cause lasting damage, potentially making it harder for the U.S. tech industry to compete globally and dominate the race to deploy artificial intelligence technology, analysts said.
The duties also are expected to drive up the costs of consumer electronics, including the iPhone, as products become more expensive to produce.
“Technology pervades everyday life and these tariffs are attacks on consumer electronics,” said Todd O’Boyle, vice president of technology policy at the Chamber of Progress, a trade group. “They’re attacks on everything that we buy and that includes any foreign parts with global supply chains.”
The levies could cause consumers to pay as much as $2,500 more for an iPhone, which costs roughly $1,000, depending on the model.
Apple did not respond to a request for comment.
Meta, Amazon and Alphabet also produce consumer gadgets but make billions of dollars annually from ads purchased by brands in other countries, which some analysts say could also drop if these advertisers pull back spending.
Meta declined to comment, but its annual report cites the possibility that tariffs or a trade dispute could result in a drop for its China-based ad revenue. The company has also expanded production of its mixed reality headsets in Vietnam.
Alphabet — which makes phones, earbuds, smart speakers and other consumer electronics — also has cited tariffs among the manufacturing and supply chain risks that could harm its business. It did not respond to a request for comment.
The White House said it’s imposing tariffs because it wants to shift more manufacturing jobs back to America.
Relying too much on foreign producers could threaten economic security by “rendering U.S. supply chains vulnerable to geopolitical disruption and supply shocks,” Trump said in his executive order.
“These America First economic policies delivered historic job, wage, and investment growth in his first term, and everyone from Main Street to Wall Street is again going to thrive as President Trump secures our nation’s economic future,” said White House spokesman Kush Desai.
He cited recent multibillion-dollar commitments made by companies such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and Apple to build more manufacturing plants in the United States.
The tech industry was bracing for more tariffs ahead of what the president dubbed “Liberation Day.”
The Trump administration already imposed tariffs on certain auto parts and imported aluminum and steel, materials that tech companies use to build data centers that store and manage computer hardware and equipment.
The administration spared those materials, along with copper, from its latest tariffs. Semiconductors that power electronics and AI systems also were excluded from what the White House dubbed “reciprocal tariffs.”
Exactly how tech companies will respond to the costs of tariffs is still unclear. Although Trump wants businesses to shift manufacturing back to the United States, they could also move production to places with lower tariff rates. It would take years for businesses to build new factories.
It’s also possible these tariffs will not remain.
During Trump’s first term, Apple got exemptions from tariffs imposed on imports from China for some of its products including its smartwatch. Trump’s tariffs in his second term go well beyond China, affecting more countries.
Nick Vyas, founding director of the Randall R. Kendrick Global Supply Chain Institute at USC’s Marshall School of Business, said the Trump administration is signaling to businesses that simply shifting production to places outside China isn’t enough.
“‘Every dollar that I open up my market for you, I need you to open up the market for me [to] the same degree,’” he said, describing Trump’s thinking.
Some tech companies have made efforts to bring more manufacturing back to the U.S.
Among them is Santa Clara, Calif.-based chipmaker Nvidia, one of the world’s most valuable companies.
Although it appears Nvidia would be spared from the brunt of the tariffs because of the exemption for semiconductors, some industry observers said more tariffs could still be coming.
Trump told reporters on Thursday that “chips are starting very soon” when asked if tariffs for chips are off the table.
“We’re manufacturing in so many different places. We could shift things around,” Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang said at a Q&A with analysts last month. “Tariffs will have a little impact for us short term. Long term, we’re going to have manufacturing onshore.”
Apple in February said it would invest $500 billion in the U.S. that would go toward various efforts, including opening a manufacturing facility in Houston.
The company said in its annual report that “substantially all” of its manufacturing is done by partners primarily located in mainland China, India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam.
Shifting where iPhones and other Apple products are made is not easy.
China has engineers who can meet the high quality specifications on Apple products and the U.S. doesn’t have that great a number of engineers with those same skills, Harwit said.
“It’s really that level of manufacturing expertise that Apple developed over many years that makes it very difficult for Apple to give up on China and for the U.S. to find the skilled workers really needed in the United States to meet their needs,” he added.
Daniel Ives, a managing director at Wedbush Securities, said that it would take Apple three years and $30 billion to move just 10% of its supply chain from Asia to the U.S. Plus, the iPhone’s price tag would grow to $3,500, he estimated.
“The chances that Apple and the overall tech supply chain moves to the U.S. is a fantasy, fictional tale, unless you like $3,500 iPhones, $2,500 TVs and $300 AirPods,” Ives said.

Politics
Video: Senator Says Abrego Garcia Was Denied Phone Call During Deportation

new video loaded: Senator Says Abrego Garcia Was Denied Phone Call During Deportation
transcript
transcript
Senator Says Abrego Garcia Was Denied Phone Call During Deportation
Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, shared details of his visit with Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man who was wrongly deported to El Salvador last month.
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About three kilometers outside of CECOT, we were pulled over by soldiers. You could see the rest of the traffic was allowed to go by. We were pulled over by soldiers and told that we were not allowed to proceed any farther. Much later in the afternoon, I was actually getting ready to catch a plane out of San Salvador back here later yesterday evening, and all of a sudden I got word that I would be allowed to meet with Kilmar Abrego Garcia. And they brought him to the hotel where I was staying. He spoke several times about your 5-year-old son who has autism. Five-year-old son, who was in the car in Maryland when Kilmar was pulled over by U.S. government agents and handcuffed. His 5-year-old son was in the car at that time. He told me that he was taken to Baltimore first. I assume that was the Baltimore detention center. He asked to make a phone call from there to let people know what had happened to him. But he was denied that opportunity.
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Politics
Supreme Court blocks new deportations of Venezuelans in Texas under 18th century Alien Enemies Act

The U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling early Saturday morning blocking, at least for now, the deportations of any Venezuelans held in northern Texas under an 18th century wartime law.
The justices instructed the Trump administration not to remove Venezuelans held in the Bluebonnet Detention Center “until further order of this court.”
Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented from the majority opinion.
ACLU APPEALS TO SUPREME COURT TO STOP VENEZUELAN DEPORTATIONS; BOASBERG HOLDS EMERGENCY HEARING FRIDAY NIGHT
Venezuelan migrants repatriated from the U.S. gesture seen upon arrival at Simon Bolivar International Airport in Maiquetia, Venezuela, on April 4, 2025. (JUAN BARRETO/AFP via Getty Images)
The court’s ruling comes after an emergency appeal from the American Civil Liberties Union arguing that federal immigration authorities appeared to be working to resume the removal of migrants from the U.S. under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.
Two federal judges earlier declined to step in and the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has not made any decision.
DEMOCRAT SENATOR VAN HOLLEN MEETS, SHAKES HANDS WITH ABREGO GARCIA

A Venezuelan migrant repatriated from the U.S. walks upon arrival at Simon Bolivar International Airport in Maiquetia, Venezuela, on April 4, 2025. (JUAN BARRETO/AFP via Getty Images)
The Alien Enemies Act has only been invoked three previous times in U.S. history, with the most recent being during World War II to hold Japanese-American civilians in internment camps.
The Trump administration claims the act gave them the authority to swiftly remove immigrants they accuse of being members of the Tren de Aragua gang, regardless of their immigration status.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Politics
Barbara Lee surges into lead in Oakland mayor's race

Former longtime Democratic Congresswoman Barbara Lee surged into the lead in the race to become Oakland’s next mayor, according to vote results released Friday evening.
The latest tally showed Lee moving ahead of her primary challenger in the race, former City Councilmember Loren Taylor, with 53% percent of the vote compared to Taylor’s 47%. Her lead was commanding enough that the San Francisco Chronicle called the race, declaring Lee “has been elected Oakland’s next mayor.”
Oakland, a city of 436,000 people, uses ranked-choice elections, which allows voters to select multiple candidates by order of preference. The method complicates the vote count, and it could be weeks before Alameda County election officials announce a final tally for this week’s special election.
Lee’s campaign held off on declaring victory Friday evening, although campaign officials released a statement calling the latest results “encouraging.” Taylor, who represented East Oakland on the City Council for four years, could not be reached for comment.
If the results hold, Lee, 78, a progressive icon who represented Oakland and surrounding areas in Congress for nearly three decades, would replace ousted Mayor Sheng Thao, a progressive elected in 2022. Thao was recalled from office in November amid deep voter frustrations with crime, homelessness and the pervasive sense that Oakland is in crisis. Thao was accused of bungling the city’s finances, contributing to a budget shortfall that will almost certainly require sweeping cuts across government departments.
Efforts to recall Thao from office were already underway when, in June, FBI agents raided her home as part of an investigation into an alleged corruption scheme involving Thao’s boyfriend and a father-son team who run the company that provides Oakland’s recycling services. That probe energized the recall, which easily passed with more than 60% of the vote. Thao, her boyfriend, Andre Jones, and Andy and David Duong of California Waste Solutions were indicted on federal bribery charges in January. All four have pleaded not guilty.
“I decided to run for Mayor knowing that Oakland is a deeply divided City — and I ran to unite our community,” Lee said in her Friday statement.
The election created an unexpected career opportunity for Lee, who left Washington in January after losing her bid for the Senate in last year’s primary to fellow Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, who went on to win the seat in November.
With Oakland in sudden need of a new mayor, a broad coalition of business groups, labor organizations and elected leaders spent last fall calling on Lee to run in the April 15 special election and save their city from collapse.
Though nine people ultimately competed in the race, Taylor, a business management consultant who is 30 years Lee’s junior, emerged as her main opponent. He painted the city as “broken” and in desperate need of a chief executive with on-the-ground experience at City Hall who could make tough decisions without fear of disappointing longtime political supporters.
Taylor received a financial boost from tech and business leaders who funneled tens of thousands of dollars into independent expenditure committees supporting his candidacy.
Lee ran on her record as a veteran politician with decades of experience forging connections across diverse interest groups. She touted the hundreds of millions of dollars she brought home to the East Bay during her time in Congress, where she advocated for anti-war policies and promoted legislation that targeted racism, sexism, poverty and labor exploitation. Those values stem from her roots as a Black Panther activist and her educational training at Mills College and UC Berkeley.
She promised to “make life better for everybody” in Oakland, while vowing to fight crime and encourage the estimated 5,400 homeless people in Oakland into shelter and housing. She has pledged to hire more police officers, curb government spending and increase transparency into decisions made at City Hall.
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