Apple promised me 3 'big' manufacturing units in US: Trump

Bullish on bringing manufacturing jobs back to the US since the day he became US President, Donald Trump now says that Apple CEO Tim Cook has promised him that the Cupertino-based tech giant will build three 'big' manufacturing plants in the US.

In an interview to the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, the US President said he had a phone conversation with Cook.

"He's promised me three big plants -- big, big, big," Trump said, referring to Cook.

"I said you know, Tim, unless you start building your plants in this country, I won't consider my administration an economic success. He called me, and he said they are going forward," Trump was quoted as saying.

Apple, which has limited manufacturing capacity in the US, was yet to comment on this.

Trump has reiterated several times that he would bring manufacturing jobs back to the US.

Apple currently gets iPhones assembled in Taiwan with Foxconn, which is also reportedly considering to invest $7 billion in a US-based facility.

Apple, which is set to release iPhone 8 in September, recently committed a $1 billion fund to help create manufacturing jobs in the US.

"By doing that, we can be the ripple in the pond. Because if we can create many manufacturing jobs around, those manufacturing jobs create more jobs around them because you have a service industry that builds up around them," Cook was quoted as saying.

--IANS

na/bg