Apple at heart of US-China selective decoupling, says Gallagher

Apple and Walt Disney are among US businesses that will face the steepest challenges in a “selective decoupling” from China, a key lawmaker said after a series of meetings with executives and experts in Hollywood and Silicon Valley this week.

Representative Mike Gallagher, the chairman of a House committee focused on US-China competition, met with Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook and Disney CEO Bob Iger as part of a three-day trip through California to learn more about how companies are navigating the tensions between the world’s two largest economies.
 

“Apple’s at the heart of what is the most complex aspect of this competition, which is companies that have a massive presence in China are going have to deal with the fact that some form of selective economic decoupling is inevitable,” Gallagher said in a phone interview. 

“It’s going to continue.” Gallagher, a Republican from Wisconsin, and his Democratic counterpart, Raja Krishnamoorthi, 

led a group of about a half dozen lawmakers through a jam-packed programme filled with meetings with tech and entertainment 

executives. The agenda included a lunch with Cook and executives from Alphabet’s Google, Microsoft and Palantir Technologies, and dinner with about a dozen prominent venture capitalists, including Marc Andreessen and Vinod Khosla.