Apple is preparing to move some of its Mac Mini production to the U.S. as part of the company’s ongoing efforts to satisfy Trump administration pressure for domestic investment. Manufacturing is slated to begin later this year at a Foxconn facility in North Houston, Texas that currently assembles Apple’s AI servers.
“Apple is deeply committed to the future of American manufacturing, and we’re proud to significantly expand our footprint in Houston with the production of the Mac Mini later this year,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in the announcement. “We began shipping advanced AI servers from Houston ahead of schedule, and we’re excited to accelerate that work.”
The development is part of Apple’s plans to invest $600 billion in the U.S. over the next four years, a pledge made after President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 25 percent tariff on Apple products made overseas. However, most of that $600 billion in spending is not tied to increasing domestic output.
In an interview with The Wall Street JournalApple’s chief operating officer, Sabih Khan, said the goal is to increase U.S. production of the Mac Mini to meet local demand, but the company will continue to manufacture thousands of desktop computers in Asia. Apple began building some of its Mac Pro computers in Austin, Texas, in 2013, but Khan noted that production at the facility has slowed due to low demand.
While the Mac Mini is Apple’s cheapest desktop computer, it accounts for less than 1 percent of the company’s total sales, and less than 5 percent of global Mac sales, according to estimates by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners. Khan said Apple is optimistic about expanding Mac mini production to Houston because demand is higher and more reliable than the Mac Pro. Both are just a fraction of the 240 million iPhones the company sells each year, and Apple currently has no plans to move iPhone production from Asia to the US.
