Manufacturing

Nvidia (NVDA 1.04%) has hit it out of the park quarter after quarter when reporting earnings, but that hasn’t made investors blasé about the artificial intelligence (AI) giant’s next update. Instead, investors wait with just as much anticipation each time around — and even wonder if, this time, they’ll see a slowdown in what’s been a whirlwind growth story.

As investors count the days until the next report — and in this case, it’s set for Nov. 19 — they look for clues about Nvidia’s AI business, one that’s generated record revenue in recent years. Nvidia, as the world’s biggest AI chip designer, delivered $130 billion in revenue in the latest fiscal year — that’s compared to $27 billion just two years earlier.

Now, one particular clue — and one investors truly can count on — comes from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM -1.68%), a key Nvidia partner. TSMC, the world’s largest chip manufacturer, just announced big news for Nvidia stockholders. 

Image source: Getty Images.

How Nvidia and TSMC work together

Before we get to this fantastic news, though, we’ll take a quick look at Nvidia’s business and how the company works with TSMC. Nvidia for many years built its business around designing chips for the gaming market, but as AI surfaced as a growth opportunity, the company turned its attention there. And, as they say, the rest is history.

Today, Nvidia dominates this market with its high-powered chips as well as related products and services from enterprise software to networking systems. This has helped earnings and the stock price soar — Nvidia shares have climbed more than 1,100% over the past five years.

It’s important to note that though Nvidia is a chip designer, it’s not a chipmaker. Nvidia doesn’t actually manufacture its AI chips, known as graphics processing units (GPUs), and instead turns to TSMC for that job. TSMC has more than 500 customers across segments of the market, including the world’s chip leaders — from Nvidia to Broadcom and Advanced Micro Devices.

A deep look at the industry

On top of this, since the actual production of advanced chips becomes more and more complex with each chip innovation, TSMC starts work with customers two to three years prior to a new project. “Therefore, we probably get the deepest and widest look possible in the industry,” CEO C.C. Wei said during the company’s earnings call this week.

All of this means TSMC has a very clear picture of what’s happening in today’s AI market and what lies ahead. And this brings me to the news the company delivered this week — news that’s a big deal for Nvidia stockholders.

TSMC reported a 39% increase in profit and a 30% increase in revenue in the recent quarter, beating analysts’ estimates. Importantly, Wei said TSMC continues to see a “strong outlook” from customers and “received very strong signals from our customers’ customers. … Our conviction in the AI megatrend is strengthening.” Wei added that semiconductor demand “will continue to be very fundamental.”

Confirming the trend

All of this is incredible news for Nvidia’s shareholders as it confirms the trends the chip designer has spoken of in recent quarters and its prediction for growth in demand. In Nvidia’s most recent earnings report, back in August, CEO Jensen Huang predicted that AI infrastructure spending may jump to $4 trillion by 2030. TSMC’s report this past week offers us reason to be optimistic about that possibility and suggests that Nvidia is already starting to reap the rewards.

As customers seek GPUs, chip designers must turn to TSMC for production — and it’s likely that TSMC’s revenue gains reflect demand for Nvidia’s chips since Nvidia is the market leader.

All of this means there’s reason for investors to be optimistic about Nvidia’s upcoming earnings report and the messages it will deliver regarding future demand for its GPUs. That’s incredible news for Nvidia stockholders — and makes the stock a great one to buy and hold today.

Stellantis announced a $13bn investment in the US, which will see production of the Jeep Compass move to the US from Canada.

Canada has threatened legal action against carmaker Stellantis NV over what Ottawa says is the company’s unacceptable plan to shift production of one model to a United States plant.

On Wednesday, Minister of Industry Melanie Joly sent a letter to Stellantis CEO Antonio Filosa noting that the company had agreed to maintain its Canadian presence in exchange for substantial financial support.

“Anything short of fulfilling that commitment will be considered a default under our agreement,” she said. If Stellantis did not live up to its commitment, Canada would “exercise all options, including legal”, she said.

Stellantis announced a $13bn investment in the US on Tuesday, a move that it said would bring five new models to the market. As part of the plan, production of the Jeep Compass will move to the US state of Illinois from a facility in Brampton in the Canadian province of Ontario.

A copy of the letter was made available to the Reuters news agency. The existence of the letter was first reported by Bloomberg.

Stellantis had paused retooling of the Brampton plant in February, shortly after US President Donald Trump announced tariffs against Canadian goods, upending the highly integrated North American auto industry.

In a statement on Tuesday night, Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney said Ottawa had made clear it expected Stellantis to fulfil the undertakings it had made to the workers at the plant.

“We are working with the company to develop the right measures to protect Stellantis employees,” he said.

Ontario is Canada’s industrial heartland and accounts for about 40 percent of its national gross domestic product (GDP).

“I have spoken with Stellantis to stress my disappointment with their decision,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford said on social media on Wednesday.

Stellantis spokesperson LouAnn Gosselin said the company was investing in Canada and noted plans to add a third shift to a plant in Windsor, Ontario.

“Canada is very important to us. We have plans for Brampton and will share them upon further discussions with the Canadian government,” she said in an emailed statement.

The deal also gives the ChatGPT creator the option to buy upto 10 percent of AMD.

United States chipmaker AMD will supply artificial intelligence chips to OpenAI in a multi-year deal that would bring in tens of billions of dollars in annual revenue and give the ChatGPT creator the option to buy up to roughly 10 percent of the company.

Shares of the chipmaker surged more than 34 percent on Monday when the deal was announced, putting them on track for their biggest one-day gain in more than nine years and adding roughly $80bn to the company’s market value.

The deal, latest in a string of investment commitments, underscores OpenAI and the broader AI industry’s voracious appetite for computing power as companies race towards developing AI technology that meets or exceeds human intelligence.

“We view this deal as certainly transformative, not just for AMD, but for the dynamics of the industry,” AMD executive vice president Forrest Norrod told the Reuters news agency.

Deal helps ‘validate technology’

The agreement closely ties the startup at the centre of the AI boom to AMD, one of the strongest rivals of Nvidia, which recently agreed to make substantial investments in OpenAI.

Analysts said it was a significant vote of confidence in AMD’s AI chips and software but is unlikely to dent Nvidia’s dominance, as the market leader continues to sell every AI chip it can make.

AMD executives expect the deal to net tens of billions of dollars in annual revenue. Because of the ripple affect of the agreement, AMD expects to receive more than $100bn in new revenue over four years from OpenAI and other customers, they said.

The chipmaker is expected to report revenue of $32.78bn this year, according to LSEG data. In contrast, analysts are expecting Nvidia to report revenue of $206.26bn for the current fiscal year.

“AMD has really trailed Nvidia for quite some time. So I think it helps validate their technology,” said Leah Bennett, chief investment strategist at Concurrent Asset Management.

Shares of Nvidia dipped more than 1 percent.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the AMD deal will help his startup build enough AI infrastructure to meet its needs.

It was not immediately clear how OpenAI would fund the enormous deal.

OpenAI, which is valued at $500bn, generated approximately $4.3bn in revenue in the first half of 2025 and burned through $2.5bn in cash, according to media reports.

In September, Nvidia announced a deal to supply OpenAI with at least 10 gigawatts worth of its systems.

In contrast with the startup’s deal with AMD where it will take a stake in the chipmaker, Nvidia will invest $100bn in the ChatGPT parent under the terms of the agreement announced in September.

Taking a stake in AMD could give OpenAI “the power to potentially influence corporate strategy. With Nvidia, OpenAI is simply the client and not a part-owner,” said Dan Coatsworth, head of markets at A J Bell.

OpenAI has worked with AMD for years, providing inputs on the design of older generations of AI chips.

The startup and its main backer, Microsoft, announced last month that they had signed a non-binding agreement to restructure OpenAI in to a for-profit entity.

A person familiar with the matter said the deal with AMD does not change any of OpenAI’s ongoing compute plans, including that effort or its partnership with Microsoft.

Last month, US President Donald Trump had said he would introduce new tariffs to protect the manufacture of medium- and heavy-duty trucks from outside competition.

United States President Donald Trump has said that all medium- and heavy-duty trucks imported into the country will face a 25 percent tariff rate starting November 1, a significant escalation of his effort to protect US companies from foreign competition.

Trump made the announcement on Monday.

Last month, Trump had said heavy truck imports would face new duties on October 1 on national security grounds, saying the new tariffs were to protect manufacturers from “unfair outside competition” and that the move would benefit companies such as Paccar-owned Peterbilt and Kenworth and Daimler Truck-owned Freightliner.

Under trade deals reached with Japan and the European Union, the US has agreed to 15 percent tariffs on light-duty vehicles, but it is not clear if that rate will be set for larger vehicles.

The Trump administration has also allowed producers to deduct the value of US components from tariffs paid on light-duty vehicles assembled in Canada and Mexico.

Larger vehicles include trucks for delivery, garbage pickup, and public utilities; buses for transit, shuttles, and schools; tractor-trailer trucks; semitrucks; and heavy-duty vocational vehicles.

Impact on allies

The US Chamber of Commerce earlier urged the US Commerce Department not to impose new truck tariffs, noting the top five import sources are Mexico, Canada, Japan, Germany, and Finland, “all of which are allies or close partners of the United States posing no threat to US national security”.

Mexico is the largest exporter of medium- and heavy-duty trucks to the US. A study released in January said imports of those larger vehicles from Mexico have tripled since 2019 to around 340,000 today, according to government statistics.

Under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) trade deal, medium- and heavy-duty trucks move free of tariffs if at least 64 percent of a heavy truck’s value originates in North America, via parts like engines and axles, raw materials such as steel, or assembly labour.

Tariffs could also affect Chrysler’s parent company Stellantis, which produces heavy-duty Ram trucks and commercial vans in Mexico. Stellantis had been lobbying the White House not to impose steep tariffs on its Mexican-made trucks.

Sweden’s Volvo Group is building a $700m heavy-truck factory in Monterrey, Mexico, due to start operations in 2026.

Mexico is home to 14 manufacturers and assemblers of buses, trucks, and tractor trucks, and two manufacturers of engines, according to the US International Trade Administration.

Mexico opposed new tariffs, telling the US Commerce Department in May that all Mexican trucks exported to the US have on average 50 percent US content, including diesel engines.

Last year, the US imported almost $128bn in heavy vehicle parts from Mexico, accounting for approximately 28 percent of total US imports, Mexico said.

Hundreds of federal agents descended on a sprawling site where Hyundai manufactures electric vehicles in Georgia and detained 475 people, most of them South Korean nationals.

This is the latest in a long line of workplace raids conducted as part of the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda. But the one on Thursday is distinct because of its large size and the fact that it targeted a manufacturing site state officials have long called Georgia’s largest economic development project.

The detainment of South Korean nationals also sets it apart, as they are rarely caught up in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, which data show has focused on Latinos.

Video released by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Saturday showed a caravan of vehicles driving up to the site and then federal agents directing workers to line up outside. Some detainees were ordered to put their hands up against a bus as they were frisked and then shackled around their hands, ankles and waist. Others had plastic ties around their wrists as they boarded a Georgia inmate-transfer bus.

Here are some things to know about the raid and the people impacted:

The workers detained

South Korea’s Foreign Minister Cho Hyun said Saturday that more than 300 South Koreans were among the 475 people detained.

Some of them worked for the plant operated by HL-GA Battery Co., a joint venture by Hyundai and LG Energy Solution that is set to open next year, while others were employed by contractors and subcontractors at the construction site, according to Steven Schrank, the lead Georgia agent of Homeland Security Investigations.

He said that some of the detained workers had illegally crossed the U.S. border, while others had entered the country legally but had expired visas or had entered on a visa waiver that prohibited them from working.

But an immigration attorney representing two of the detained workers said his clients arrived from South Korea under a visa waiver program that allows them to travel for tourism or business for stays of 90 days or less without obtaining a visa.

Attorney Charles Kuck said one of his clients has been in the U.S. for a couple of weeks, while the other has been in the country for about 45 days, adding that they had been planning to return home soon.

The detainees also included a lawful permanent resident who was kept in custody for having a prior record involving firearm and drug offenses, since committing a crime of “moral turpitude” can put their status in jeopardy, said Lindsay Williams, a public affairs officer for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, on Saturday.

Williams denied reports that U.S. citizens had been detained at the site, since “once citizens have identified themselves, we have no authority.”

Hyundai Motor Co. said in a statement Friday that none of its employees had been detained as far as it knew and that it is reviewing its practices to make sure suppliers and subcontractors follow U.S. employment laws. LG told the Associated Press that it couldn’t immediately confirm how many of its employees or Hyundai workers had been detained.

The South Korean government expressed “concern and regret” over the operation targeting its citizens and is sending diplomats to the site.

“The business activities of our investors and the rights of our nationals must not be unjustly infringed in the process of U.S. law enforcement,” South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lee Jaewoong said in a televised statement from Seoul.

Most of the people detained have been taken to an immigration detention center in Folkston, Ga., near the Florida state line. None of them have been charged with any crimes yet, Schrank said, but the investigation is ongoing.

Family members and friends of the detainees were having a hard time locating them or figuring out how to get in touch with them, James Woo, communications director for the advocacy group Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta, said Saturday in an email.

Woo added that many of the families were in South Korea because many of the detainees were in the United States only for business purposes.

Raid is the result of a months-long investigation

The raid was the result of a months-long investigation into allegations of illegal hiring at the site, Schrank said.

In a search warrant and related affidavits, agents sought items including employment records for current and former workers, timecards and video and photos of workers.

Court records filed last week indicated that prosecutors do not know who hired what it called “hundreds of illegal aliens.” The identity of the “actual company or contractor hiring the illegal aliens is currently unknown,” the U.S. attorney’s office wrote in a Thursday court filing.

The sprawling manufacturing site

The raid targeted a manufacturing site widely considered one of Georgia’s largest and most high-profile.

Hyundai Motor Group started manufacturing EVs at the $7.6-billion plant a year ago. Today, the site employs about 1,200 people in a largely rural area about 25 miles west of Savannah.

Agents homed in on an adjacent plant that is still under construction at which Hyundai has partnered with LG Energy Solution to produce batteries that power EVs.

The Hyundai site is in Bryan County, which saw its population increase by more than a quarter in the early 2020s and stood at almost 47,000 residents in 2023, the most recent year data are available. The county’s Asian population went from 1.5% in 2018 to 2.2% in 2023, and the growth was primarily among people of Indian descent, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures.

Raid was the ‘largest single site enforcement operation’

The Trump administration has targeted an array of businesses in its workplace raids, including farms, construction sites, restaurants, car washes and auto repair shops. But most have been smaller, including a raid the same day as the Georgia one in which federal officers took away dozens of workers from a snack-bar manufacturer in Cato, N.Y.

Other recent high-profile raids have included one in July targeting Glass House Farms, a legal marijuana farm in Camarillo. More than 360 people were arrested in one of the largest raids since Trump took office in January. Another took place at an Omaha meat production plant and involved dozens of workers being taken away.

Schrank described the one in Georgia as the “largest single site enforcement operation” in the agency’s two-decade history.

The majority of the people detained are Koreans. During the 12-month period that ended Sept. 30, 2024, 46 Koreans were deported out of more than 270,000 removals for all nationalities, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and other state Republican officials, who had courted Hyundai and celebrated the EV plant’s opening, issued statements Friday saying all employers in the state were expected to follow the law.

Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta described the raid in a joint statement as “unacceptable.”

“Our communities know the workers targeted at Hyundai are everyday people who are trying to feed their families, build stronger communities, and work toward a better future,” the statement said.

Sammie Rentz opened the Viet Huong Supermarket less than 3 miles from the Hyundai site six months ago and said he worries business may not bounce back after falling off sharply since the raid.

“I’m concerned. Koreans are very proud people, and I bet they’re not appreciating what just happened. I’m worried about them cutting and running, or starting an exit strategy,” he said.

Ellabell resident Tanya Cox, who lives less than a mile from the Hyundai site, said she had no ill feelings toward Korean nationals or other immigrant workers at the site. But few neighbors were employed there, and she felt like more construction jobs at the battery plant should have gone to local residents.

“I don’t see how it’s brought a lot of jobs to our community or nearby communities,” Cox said.

Golden writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Mike Schneider in Orlando, Fla., contributed to this report.

Canadian PM Carney also announced a fund of $5 billion in Canadian dollars ($3.6bn US) to help firms in all sectors hurt by tariffs.

Canada will waive a requirement that 20 percent of all vehicles sold next year be emissions-free, part of an aid package designed to help companies deal with damage done by tariffs from United States President Donald Trump.

Prime Minister Mark Carney made the announcement on Friday.

The 20 percent target was mandated by the Liberal government of then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in 2023.

Carney, Trudeau’s successor, said waiving the rule would help the industry deal with punitive US measures that are also targeting the steel and aluminium sectors.

“This will provide immediate financial relief to automakers at a time of increased pressures on economic competitiveness,” Carney told a televised press conference.

Ottawa will also launch an immediate 60-day review to reduce costs linked to the EV sales requirement.

The Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers’ Association welcomed the move, saying the push for mandates imposed unsustainable costs on companies and threatened investment.

Carney said it was too soon to draw any conclusions about whether Ottawa should lift the 100 percent tariffs it imposed on Chinese-made electric vehicles last year. China on Friday prolonged a probe into imports of canola from Canada, one of the world’s leading suppliers.

Carney, who won an April election on the need to diversify the economy away from the US, said Ottawa would set up a new fund worth $5 billion Canadian dollars ($3.6bn US) with flexible terms to help firms in all sectors affected by tariffs.

The US measures are “causing extreme uncertainty that is holding back massive amounts of investment”, he said.

Ottawa will introduce a new policy to ensure the federal government buys from Canadian suppliers and is also introducing a new biofuel production incentive, with more than $370 million Canadian dollars ($267m US) for farmers to address immediate competitiveness challenges.

Carney did not mention specific new aid for the steel and aluminium sectors. When pressed, he said companies could apply for help from existing funds.

The extraordinary development follows a meeting between CEO Lip-Bu Tan and Trump after he called for Tan’s removal.

The United States government will take a 10 percent stake in Intel under an agreement with the struggling chipmaker, President Donald Trump has said, marking the latest extraordinary intervention in corporate affairs.

Trump made the announcement on Friday. Intel, whose shares rose more than 6 percent, declined to comment.

The development follows a meeting between CEO Lip-Bu Tan and Trump earlier this month that was sparked by Trump’s demand for the Intel chief’s resignation over his ties to Chinese firms.

“He walked in wanting to keep his job and he ended up giving us $10bn for the United States,” Trump said on Friday.

The move marks a clear change of direction and also follows a $2bn capital injection from SoftBank Group in what was a major vote of confidence for the troubled US chipmaker in the middle of a turnaround.

Federal backing could give Intel more breathing room to revive its loss-making foundry business, analysts said, but it still suffers from a weak product roadmap and challenges in attracting customers to its new factories.

Trump, who met Tan on August 11, has taken an unprecedented approach to national security.

The US president has pushed for multibillion-dollar government tie-ups in semiconductors and rare earths, such as a pay-for-play deal with Nvidia and an arrangement with rare-earth producer MP Materials to secure critical minerals.

Tan, who took the top job at Intel in March, has been tasked to turn around the US chipmaking icon, which recorded an annual loss of $18.8bn in 2024 — its first such loss since 1986. The company’s last fiscal year of positive adjusted free cash flow was 2021.

Earlier this week, US Senator Bernie Sanders supported the plan. He and Senator Elizabeth Warren had previously said that the US Treasury Department should receive a warrant, equity stake or senior debt instrument from any company that receives government grants like Intel had under the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, which sought to lure chip production away from Asia and boost US domestic semiconductor output with $39bn in subsidies.

A formal announcement of the investment is expected later on Friday.

The new stake in the tech giant aims to increase US semiconductor chip production.

United States Senator Bernie Sanders has thrown his support behind US President Donald Trump’s plan to convert US grants to chipmakers, including $10.9bn for Intel, into government stakes in the companies.

The senator for the state of Vermont announced his support on Wednesday.

“If microchip companies make a profit from the generous grants they receive from the federal government, the taxpayers of America have a right to a reasonable return on that investment,” Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, said in a statement to the Reuters news agency.

The awards were part of the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, which sought to lure chip production away from Asia and boost American domestic semiconductor output with $39bn in subsidies.

The acronym CHIPS in the name of the legislation stands for “Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors”.

US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is now looking into the government taking equity stakes in embattled Intel and other chipmakers in exchange for the grants as the Trump administration seeks “equity” in return for “investments”.

Rare bipartisanship

The unusual alignment between Sanders and Trump on government ownership stakes in private companies highlights a marked shift by Trump toward policies of state intervention in the economy that are typically associated with the left.

Since Trump took office for a second time in January, he agreed to allow AI chip giants Nvidia and AMD to sell AI chips to China in exchange for the US government receiving 15 percent of revenues from the sales.

The Pentagon is also set to become the largest shareholder in a small mining company to boost the output of rare earth magnets. And the US government negotiated for itself a “golden share” with certain veto rights as part of a deal to allow Nippon Steel to buy US Steel.

Sanders and Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat, had proposed an amendment to the CHIPS Act that would have forbidden the Commerce Department from granting a CHIPS Act award without the Treasury Department receiving a warrant, equity stake or senior debt instrument issued by the recipient company.

“I am glad the Trump administration is in agreement with the amendment I offered three years ago,” Sanders said. “Taxpayers should not be providing billions of dollars in corporate welfare to large, profitable corporations like Intel without getting anything in return.”

Much of the funding for CHIPS Act award recipients such as Micron, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co and Samsung has not been disbursed.

Trump’s interest in Intel is also being driven by his desire to boost chip production in the US, which has been a focal point of the trade war that he has been waging throughout the world. By lessening the country’s dependence on chips manufactured overseas, the president believes the US will be better positioned to maintain its technological lead on China in the race to create artificial intelligence.

Earlier this month, Trump called on Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan to resign.

The demand was triggered by reports raising national security concerns about Tan’s past investments in Chinese tech companies while he was a venture capitalist. But Trump has since backed off after Tan professed his allegiance to the US to Intel employees and went to the White House to meet with the president, who applauded the Intel CEO for having an “amazing story”.

This comes as Intel is also in talks with other large investors to receive an equity infusion at a discounted price just days after the chipmaker got a $2bn capital injection from the SoftBank Group, according to CNBC.

On Wall Street, investors have not responded well to the government’s potential new role. Intel stock is down 7.1 percent from the market open as of 1:30pm in New York (17:30 GMT).

New US tariffs covering 407 products will take effect immediately.

The United States Commerce Department is set to hike steel and aluminium tariffs on more than 400 products including wind turbines, mobile cranes, bulldozers and other heavy equipment, along with railcars, furniture and hundreds of other products.

The government agency announced the new development on Tuesday.

The department said 407 product categories are being added to the list of “derivative” steel and aluminium products covered by sectoral tariffs, with a 50 percent tariff on any steel and aluminium content of these products.

The department is also adding imported parts for automotive exhaust systems and electrical steel needed for electric vehicles to the new tariffs.

A group of foreign automakers had urged the department not to add the parts, saying the US does not have the domestic capacity to handle current demand.

The new tariffs take effect immediately and also cover compressors and pumps.

“Today’s action expands the reach of the steel and aluminum tariffs and shuts down avenues for circumvention – supporting the continued revitalisation of the American steel and aluminum industries,” said Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security Jeffrey Kessler.

Steelmakers including Cleveland-Cliffs had petitioned the administration to expand the tariffs to include additional steel and aluminium auto parts.

Since returning to the presidency, Trump has imposed a 10 percent tariff on almost all US trading partners, alongside varying steeper levels on dozens of economies such as the European Union and Japan.

Certain sectors have been spared from these countrywide tariff levels, but instead were targeted under different authorities by even higher duties.

Some businesses have already had to raise prices because of increased tariffs. On Tuesday, on the heels of its earnings report, Home Depot said it would need to raise prices on imported goods that it sells.

“There will be modest price movement in some categories,” Home Depot Chief Financial Officer Richard McPhail said on a Tuesday conference call.

Other brands that have recently announced price increases include the world’s largest consumer goods company, Procter and Gamble, which last month said it would need to raise prices on a quarter of the goods it produces.

Officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration made comments saying the equity stake was not to run the firm.

United States Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has said the US government wants an equity stake in Intel in exchange for cash grants approved during the administration of former President Joe Biden.

Separately, also on Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said any US investment in Intel would be aimed at helping the troubled chipmaker stabilise.

Asked about reports that the US was considering taking a 10 percent stake in Intel, Bessent told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” programme: “The stake would be a conversion of the grants and maybe increase the investment into Intel to help stabilise the company for chip production here in the US.”

Bessent gave no details about the size or timing of any US stake in Intel, but said any investment would not be aimed at forcing US companies to buy chips from Intel.

Bessent’s comments were the first official response from the Trump administration after Bloomberg News reported on Monday that the US government is in talks to take a 10 percent Intel stake in exchange for $7.9bn in grants that were approved for the US chip company during the Biden administration.

‘Not governance’

“We should get an equity stake for our money,” Lutnick told CNBC. “We’ll get equity in return for that … instead of just giving grants away.”

Lutnick said the US does not want control of the company.

“It’s not governance, we are just converting what was a grant under Biden into equity for the Trump administration for the American people.” He suggested any stake would be “non-voting,” meaning it would not enable the US government to tell the company how to run its business.

He made his comments a day after SoftBank Group agreed to invest $2bn into the chipmaker, which has struggled to compete after years of management blunders.

“The Biden administration literally was giving Intel money for free and giving TSMC money for free, and all these companies just giving the money for free, and Donald Trump turned it into saying, ‘Hey, we want equity for the money. If we’re going to give you the money, we want a piece of the action for the American taxpayer,’” Lutnick said.

Intel and TSMC, a Taiwan-based chipmaker, did not immediately comment.

Intel helped launch Silicon Valley, but has fallen behind rivals like Nvidia Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc and is shedding thousands of workers and slashing costs under its new CEO, Lip-Bu Tan. It recorded an annual loss of $18.8bn in 2024, its first such loss since 1986.

Intel plans to end the year with 75,000 “core” workers, excluding subsidiaries, through layoffs and attrition, down from 99,500 core employees at the end of 2024. The company previously announced a 15 percent workforce reduction.

Trump recently said Tan, who was made CEO in March, should resign. But after meeting with him last week, Trump relented, saying Tan had an “amazing story”.

Flames and heavy smoke billow out of the plant owned by US Steel as firefighters struggle to extinguish the fire.

Multiple explosions at a US Steel plant near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania have killed two people and injured 10, according to the company and local authorities.

The blasts at the Clairton Coke Works – part of a sprawling industrial complex along the Monongahela River – took place just before 11am Eastern Time (15:00 GMT) on Monday.

Firefighters battled flames and heavy smoke that billowed out of the plant, which is owned by US Steel, a subsidiary of Nippon Steel.

Initially, two people were reported missing. One person was found and transported to a local hospital, said Allegheny County Police Assistant Superintendent Victor Joseph at an afternoon briefing.

There was no word yet on the possible cause of the explosion.

The investigation into the explosion would be “a time-consuming technical investigation”, Joseph said.

David Burritt, president and chief executive officer of US Steel, said in a statement that the company was working with local authorities to discover the cause.

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro posted on X that there were multiple explosions at the plant and that his administration was in touch with local officials.

“The scene is still active, and folks nearby should follow the direction of local authorities,” he wrote at the time the employee was missing.

The severity of the injuries was not known, but news accounts said several people were taken to hospital burn units.

Steel sector in decline

Clairton Mayor Rich Lattanzi said it was a horrible day for the city, about 32km (20 miles) south of Pittsburgh, long known as the US Steel City.

US Steel has produced steel in the area since the late 19th century, but in recent decades, the industry has been in decline, leading to plant closures and restructurings.

In June, Nippon Steel, Japan’s biggest steelmaker, closed its $14.9bn acquisition of US Steel after an 18-month struggle to obtain United States government approval for the deal, which faced scrutiny due to national security concerns.

While air quality monitors did not detect a dangerous rise in sulphur dioxide after Monday’s explosions, residents within 1.6km (1 mile) of the plant were advised to remain indoors, close windows and doors, set HVAC systems to recirculate, and avoid activities that draw in outside air, said Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato at the briefing.

The Clairton Coke Works is the largest coke manufacturing facility in the US, employing about 1,300 workers. It operates 10 coke oven batteries, which produce about 4.3 million tonnes of coke a year.

Coke is produced by heating coal at high temperatures. It is used in blast furnaces as part of the process of making steel.

An explosion at a US Steel plant near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the United States has left one dead and dozens injured or trapped, with emergency workers on site trying to rescue victims, officials said.

An Allegheny County Emergency Services spokesperson, Kasey Reigner, on Monday said one person died and two were currently believed to be unaccounted for. Multiple other people were treated for injuries, Reigner said.

A fire at the plant started around 10:51am (14:50 GMT), according to Allegheny County Emergency Services.

“It felt like thunder,” Zachary Buday, a construction worker near the scene, told WTAE-TV. “Shook the scaffold, shook my chest, and shook the building, and then when we saw the dark smoke coming up from the steel mill and put two and two together, and it’s like something bad happened.”

Dozens were injured and the county was sending 15 ambulances, in addition to the ambulances supplied by local emergency response agencies, Reigner said.

Air quality concerns and health warnings

The plant, a massive industrial facility along the Monongahela River south of Pittsburgh, is considered the largest coking operation in North America and is one of four major US Steel plants in Pennsylvania that employ several thousand workers.

The Allegheny County Health Department said it is monitoring the explosion and advised residents within one mile (1.6 kilometres) of the plant to remain indoors, close all windows and doors, set air conditioning systems to recirculate, and avoid drawing in outside air, such as using exhaust fans. It said its monitors have not detected levels of soot or sulfur dioxide above federal standards.

The plant converts coal to coke, a key component in the steel-making process. According to the company, it produces 4.3 million tons (3.9 million metric tonnes) of coke annually and has approximately 1,400 workers.

In recent years, the Clairton plant has been dogged by concerns about pollution. In 2019, it agreed to settle a 2017 lawsuit for $8.5m. Under the settlement, the company agreed to spend $6.5m to reduce soot emissions and noxious odours from the Clairton coke-making facility.

In another lawsuit, residents said that following a massive 2018 fire, the air felt acidic, smelled like rotten eggs, and was hard to breathe due to the release of sulfur dioxide.

Last year, the company agreed to spend $19.5m in equipment upgrades and $5m on local clean air efforts and programmes as part of settling a federal lawsuit filed by the Clean Air Council and PennEnvironment and the Allegheny County Health Department.

The lawsuits accused the steel producer of more than 12,000 violations of its air pollution permits.

David Masur, executive director of PennEnvironment, an environmental group that has previously sued US Steel over pollution, said there needed to be “a full, independent investigation into the causes of this latest catastrophe and a re-evaluation as to whether the Clairton plant is fit to keep operating.”

In June, US Steel and Nippon Steel announced they had finalised a “historic partnership”, a deal that gives the US government a say in some matters and comes a year and a half after the Japanese company first proposed its nearly $15bn buyout of the iconic American steelmaker.

The pursuit by Nippon Steel for the Pittsburgh-based company was buffeted by national security concerns and presidential politics in a premier battleground state, dragging out the transaction for more than a year after US Steel shareholders approved it.

US President Donald Trump said last week that Intel’s CEO Lip-Bu Tan was ‘highly conflicted’ because of his ties to Chinese firms.

Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan is due to visit the White House after United States President Donald Trump last week called for his removal.

The executive of the tech giant was set to meet the president on Monday, a source familiar with the matter told the Reuters news agency.

Neither Intel nor the White House immediately responded to requests for comment.

Tan is expected to have an extensive conversation with Trump while looking to explain his personal and professional background, according to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), which broke the news on Sunday, adding that he could propose ways Intel and the US  government could work together, the paper said.

Tan hopes to win Trump’s approval by showing his commitment to the US and guaranteeing the importance of keeping Intel’s manufacturing capabilities as a national security issue, the WSJ added.

Last week, Trump demanded the immediate resignation of Tan, calling him “highly conflicted” due to his ties to Chinese firms, comments that raised doubts about Tan’s plans to turn around the struggling US chip icon.

It was a rare instance of a US president publicly calling for a CEO’s ouster, and sparked debate among investors.

Tan said he shared the president’s commitment to advancing US national and economic security.

Reuters reported exclusively in April that Tan invested at least $200m in hundreds of Chinese advanced manufacturing and chip firms, some of which were linked to the Chinese military.

Tan, a Malaysian-born Chinese American business executive, was also the CEO of Cadence Design from 2008 through December 2021, during which time the chip design software maker sold products to a Chinese military university believed to be involved in simulating nuclear explosions.

Last month, Cadence agreed to plead guilty and pay more than $140m to resolve the US charges over the sales.

Intel’s stock surged ahead of the meeting. The company, which trades under the ticker INTC, is up more than 7.5 percent for the day as of noon in New York (16:00 GMT).

Trump’s sectoral tariffs on steel, aluminium and autos have hit the manufacturing sector hard and reduced hiring.

The Canadian economy lost tens of thousands of jobs in July, sending the share of people employed to an eight-month low as the labour market gave back the gains seen in the prior month.

The economy shed 40,800 jobs in July, compared with a net addition of 83,000 jobs in June, taking the employment rate, or the percentage of people employed out of the total working-age population, to 60.7 percent, Statistics Canada said on Friday.

The unemployment rate, however, remained steady at a multiyear high of 6.9 percent.

Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast the economy would add 13,500 jobs and the unemployment rate would tick up to 7 percent.

“Canada’s labour market snapped back to reality in July,” Michael Davenport, senior economist at Oxford Economics, wrote in a note.

United States President Donald Trump’s sectoral tariffs on steel, aluminium and cars have hit the manufacturing sector hard and reduced the hiring intentions of companies, the Bank of Canada has previously said.

The number of people employed in manufacturing shrank by close to 10,000 in July on a yearly basis as sectors linked to steel, aluminium and carmaking curtailed hiring and experienced layoffs.

Marty Warren, the United Steelworkers’ national director for Canada, told Reuters that about 1,000 members have been laid off.

Oxford Economics’s Davenport predicts more layoffs in the coming months, forecasting about 140,000 lost jobs and an unemployment rate rising to the mid-7 percent range later this year.

Employment in some areas has held up well despite tariffs, the data showed.

Overall, there has been little net employment growth since the beginning of the year, StatsCan said. The layoff rate was virtually unchanged at 1.1 percent in July compared with 12 months earlier.

The bulk of the job losses in July occurred among workers aged between 15 and 24 – that group’s unemployment rate edged up to 14.6 percent, the highest since September 2010, excluding the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021.

Policy rate

The youth unemployment rate is usually higher than the country’s average.

The employment rate for this group, which accounts for about 15 percent of the total working-age population, sank to 53.6 percent, the lowest level since November 1998 if the pandemic years are excluded.

The Bank of Canada kept its key policy rate unchanged last week, partly due to a strong labour market, but indicated it might reduce lending rates if inflation stays under control and economic growth weakens.

“We are now a bit more confident in our view that the Bank of Canada will resume cutting next month, although a surprisingly strong CPI [Consumer Price Index] print next week could prompt another pause,” said Alexandra Brown, North America economist at Capital Economics.

Money market bets show the odds of a rate cut at the next monetary policy meeting on September 17 at 38 percent, up 11 percentage points from Thursday.

The information, culture and recreation sector lost 29,000 jobs last month, marking the biggest decline, followed by 22,000 lost jobs in construction and 19,000 in business, building and other support services.

The average hourly wage of permanent employees – a gauge closely tracked by the Bank of Canada to ascertain inflationary trends – grew by 3.5 percent in July to 37.66 Canadian dollars ($27.4) per hour, against a 3.2 percent increase in the prior month.

Tougher United States trade penalties on goods originating in one country being re-shipped from another are not expected to immediately follow new US tariffs, three people in Southeast Asia with knowledge of the matter said, easing a major cause of concern.

Southeast Asian countries, including Vietnam and Thailand, have been explicitly targeted by White House officials for their alleged role in facilitating the so-called transshipment to the US of Chinese goods, which would face higher tariffs if shipped directly from China.

The administration of US President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on goods from dozens of countries from Thursday, and in an executive order, said products determined to have been illegally rerouted to conceal their country of origin would face additional duties of 40 percent. But it did not clarify what constitutes transshipment.

US imports from Southeast Asia’s biggest economies, which rely heavily on exports, are now subject to tariff rates of about 19 percent, many of which have been significantly reduced from previously threatened rates.

Existing US customs guidance states that goods from countries with no free trade agreements with Washington, such as Southeast Asian nations, can be labelled as made in the country where they undergo a “substantial transformation” of components, even if those parts entirely come from another country, such as China.

And with no new US guidance on rules of origin or specification of what transshipment means, some officials in Southeast Asia have told exporters that existing rules apply.

That effectively limits cases of transshipment to illegal activities, like the use of forged export certificates or documents obtained illicitly.

“Currently, all exported goods [from Thailand] are subject to a 19 percent rate because there are no rules on transshipment yet,” Arada Fuangtong, head of the Thai Ministry of Commerce’s Department of Foreign Trade, told Reuters on Thursday.

Her message was echoed by US officials in Vietnam, who told businessmen the tariff of 20 percent would apply to Vietnamese goods, even if they are entirely made with Chinese components and only assembled in Vietnam, according to one person familiar with those talks.

Trade consultants have said rules are vague, and they have advised clients, even before the new wave of US tariffs, to have at least 40 percent of local content for their exports to the US. That is “to be on the safe side”, one of them said.

The US embassy in Vietnam did not immediately reply to a request for comment. The Office of the US Trade Representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside US working hours.

“Goods defined by US customs as transshipped are subject to 40 percent duties, but pending any new definition, that’s limited to old definitions,” said a Vietnam-based consultant.

Both people declined to be named in order to speak more freely.

China dependence

According to the US customs guidance, repackaging does not usually cause a “substantial transformation”, but assembly may, depending on the complexity of the operations.

It is unclear if this narrow interpretation of transshipment could be enforced for other countries.

Economic ministries in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Singapore did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the issue.

Manufacturers in Southeast Asia, which rely heavily on Chinese components, have been in the dark for months about what Washington would consider transshipment.

Questions remain about whether that would include goods with a large, but yet undefined, share of components or raw materials from China, even when they are legitimately transformed in Southeast Asian nations.

A strict definition of transshipment may come later, multiple investment consultants warned.

An executive order signed by Trump last week said the US will “publish every six months a list of countries and specific facilities used in circumvention schemes”.

That will “inform public procurement, national security reviews, and commercial due diligence”, it said.

“The message from Washington is deterrence,” said Marco Forster, director for Southeast Asia at investment consultancy Dezan Shira and Associates.

“If your supply chain cuts corners, it won’t be treated as a technical error. It’ll be treated as fraud.”

The world’s top-selling carmaker joins a growing list of companies reporting profit hits because of tariffs

Toyota expects a $9.5bn hit from United States President Donald Trump’s tariffs on cars imported to the US, the largest of any company to date, underscoring growing margin pressures.

The world’s top-selling carmaker announced the forecast impact alongside its updated annual guidance on Thursday.

Toyota also cut its forecast for full-year operating profit by 16 percent, reflecting challenges for global manufacturers grappling with rising costs from US levies on cars, parts, steel and aluminium.

“It’s honestly very difficult for us to predict what will happen regarding the market environment,” Takanori Azuma, Toyota’s head of finance, told a briefing, vowing to keep making cars for US customers, regardless of tariff impact.

Azuma said the 1.4-trillion yen ($9.50bn) estimate also includes fallout that suppliers are facing, particularly those in the US importing parts from Japan, though he declined to say how much of the total was attributable to that.

Toyota’s North American business swung to an operating loss of 63.6 billion yen ($431.3m) in the first quarter, from a profit of 100.7 billion yen ($682.9m) a year earlier, as it took a hit of 450 billion yen ($3bn) from the tariffs.

Its broad production operations, which include US, Canadian, Mexican and Japanese plants, expose it to tariffs not only on direct exports but also on vehicles and parts shipped across borders within North America.

Last week, the automaker said it turned out some 1.1 million Toyota and Lexus brand vehicles in North America in the first six months of 2025, including more than 700,000 in the US.

Forecasts tumble

Toyota cut its operating profit forecast for the financial year to the end of March 2026 to 3.2 trillion yen ($21.7bn) down from a previous outlook of 3.8 trillion yen ($25.7bn).

It had previously estimated a tariff hit of 180 billion yen ($1.2bn) for April and May, but that was solely for the impact from tariffs on Toyota’s vehicles. It had not issued a full-year projection until now.

Rivals have reported smaller tariff hits so far: Jeep maker Stellantis said tariffs were expected to add $1.7bn in expenses for the year. General Motors (GM) has projected one of $4bn to $5bn for the year, while Ford expects a $3bn gross hit to pretax adjusted profit.

On Wednesday, Ford reported that second-quarter results took an $800m hit from tariffs.

Trade deals

The first-quarter results highlight the pressure US import tariffs are putting on Japanese automakers, even as a trade pact between Tokyo and Washington offers potential relief.

Under the deal agreed last month, Japanese auto exports into the US would face a 15 percent tariff, down from levies totalling 27.5 percent previously. But a timeframe for the change has yet to be unveiled.

Last week, Toyota reported record global output and sales for the year’s first half, driven by strong demand in North America, Japan and China, including that for petrol-electric hybrid vehicles.

The carmaker also announced on Thursday a plan to build a new vehicle factory in Japan, where car sales have been falling due to a shrinking population and declining ownership.

Toyota said it planned to start operations early next decade at the new plant, but has yet to decide production models.

On Wall Street, Toyota’s stock is on the decline amid its downward revised forecast. As of 11:30am in New York City (15:30 GMT), it is down by 1.6 percent. Competitors’ stocks are mixed. Ford is down 0.5 percent, Stellantis is up 2.4 percent and GM is up by about 0.7 percent.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick forecasts the revenue increase even as Trump announces higher pharma and semiconductor chip levies, which have yet to kick in.

The United States expects to bring in at least $50bn a month from tariffs as higher levies on imports from dozens of countries begin to kick in.

US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Thursday outlined the forecasted revenue, an increase of $20bn from last month, when tariffs brought in $30bn.

“And then you’re going to get the semiconductors, you’re going to get pharmaceuticals, you’re going to get all sorts of additional tariff money coming in,” Lutnick said in an interview with Fox Business Network.

US President Donald Trump’s higher tariffs on imports from dozens of countries took effect on Thursday, raising the average US import duty to its highest in a century, with countries facing tariffs of 10 percent to 50 percent.

Trump on Wednesday also announced plans to levy a tariff of about 100 percent on imported semiconductor chips unless manufacturers commit to producing in the US, as well as a small tariff on pharmaceutical imports that would rise to 250 percent over time.

Details of those sectoral tariffs are expected in the coming weeks after the Commerce Department completes investigations into the impact of those imports on US national security.

Lutnick told Fox Business Network that companies could win exemptions from the expected semiconductor tariff if they filed plans to build plants in the US, and those plans were overseen by an auditor.

“[Trump’s] objective is to get semiconductor manufacturing done here,” he said, predicting that the initiative would result in some $1 trillion in investment to bolster domestic manufacturing.

Other exemptions have already been agreed, including with the European Union, which said its agreement to accept a 15 percent tariff on most EU exports includes chips, and with Japan, which has said the US agreed not to give it a worse rate than other countries.

The push to boost domestic chip manufacturing is not new.

The US Congress created a $52.7bn semiconductor manufacturing and research subsidy programme in 2022 under former President Joe Biden, and all five leading-edge semiconductor firms agreed last year to locate chip factories in the US.

Last year, the Commerce Department said the US produced about 12 percent of semiconductor chips globally, down from 40 percent in 1990.

Lutnick, asked about separate talks under way with China on extending a tariff truce that is due to end on August 12, said he felt an agreement was possible.

“I think we’re going to leave that to the trade team and to the president to make those decisions,” he said. “It feels likely that they’re going to come to an agreement and extend that for another 90 days, but I’ll leave it to that team.”

Even as the United States slaps India with a 50 percent tariff, the highest among all countries so far and one that will push their relationship to its lowest moment in years, one thing is clear: US President Donald Trump is more interested in onshoring than friend-shoring, experts say.

On Wednesday, the US announced an additional 25 percent tariff on India over its import of Russian oil, taking the total to 50 percent. The move caught most experts by surprise as New Delhi was one of the first to start trade negotiations with Washington, DC, and Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi have repeatedly admired each other in public statements and called each other friends. Brazil is the only other country facing tariffs as high as India’s.

“The breakdown of the trade negotiations was a surprise,” said Vina Nadjibulla, vice president of strategy and research at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada.

“This is a very difficult moment, arguably the worst in many, many years in their relationship and puts India in a very small group of countries that find themselves without a deal and with the highest tariff rates. They now need some pragmatic path forward and need to find a way to rebuild trust,” Nadjibulla said.

While the 50 percent tariffs, set to kick in in three weeks, have come as a shock, there has been a series of events in the past few weeks that hinted at disagreements between the two countries.

Just last week, Trump threatened that he would penalise New Delhi for buying Russian oil and arms, venting his frustration over an impasse in trade talks and referred to both countries as “dead economies”.

Negotiations deadlock

Last year, bilateral trade between India and the US stood at approximately $212bn, with a trade gap of about $46bn in India’s favour. Modi has said in the past that he plans to more than double trade between the two countries to $500bn in the next five years.

As part of the tariff negotiations, New Delhi had offered to remove levies from US industrial goods and said it would increase defence and energy purchases, the Reuters news agency reported. It also offered to scale back taxes on cars, despite a strong auto lobby at home pressuring it not to.

But it refused to remove duties from farm and dairy products, two politically sensitive sectors that employ hundreds of millions of predominantly poor Indians, and a stance similar to some other countries like Canada.

There are also geopolitical layers to what was supposed to be a trade conversation, pointed out Farwa Aamer, director of South Asia Initiatives at the Asia Society Policy Institute in New York.

A very public one was the difference in perception on how the latest clash between India and archenemy Pakistan in May was brought to an end. Trump has repeatedly said that he mediated a ceasefire. India has repeatedly said that Trump had no role in bringing about a truce and has said that Modi and Trump never spoke during the conflict.

Pakistan, on the other hand, has said it will nominate Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize and has so far walked away with deals with the US to explore its reserves of critical minerals and oil as its efforts to reset ties with the US play out after years of ambivalence under former US President Joe Biden, said Aamer.

All of this has caused unease for New Delhi, which is now trying to navigate a tough road. “This will test India’s foreign policy,” said Aamer, “and the question is if we will see it grow with the US even as it maintains its ties with Russia,” its longstanding defence and trade partner.

New Delhi has called Wednesday’s tariff “unfair, unjustified and unreasonable” and said its imports of Russian oil are based on its objective of securing the energy needs of its nation of 1.4 billion people.

But beyond that, “India doesn’t want to look weak”, said Aamer. “India has this global standing, and Modi has this global standing, so it has to hold its own. It will maintain its stance that its national security is driving its foreign policy.”

Robert Rogowsky, a professor of international trade at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, said he expected “very creative diplomacy” in the “near term” as India and the US try to reset ties despite tensions.

“Strong-arming individuals like Modi will inevitably lead to shifts and counter-shifts,” he told Al Jazeera.

Adding instability

For now, India can focus on strengthening its bilateral trade agreements, said Aamer, such as the one it signed with the United Kingdom last month and another with the European Union, which is currently in the works.

India is also trying to stabilise relations with China –  just as Australia, Canada and Japan have done in recent months since Trump took office and hit allies with tariffs. Modi is planning to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit at the end of the month. It would be his first visit to China since the two countries had a face-off in 2020 in the Galwan River valley.

But the trade blow from the US also comes at a time when India has been trying to position itself as a manufacturing hub and as an option for businesses that were looking to add locations outside China.

In April, Apple, for instance, said all iPhones meant to be sold in the US would be assembled in India by next year. While electronics are exempt for now from the tariffs, a country with a 50 percent tariff tag on it is hardly attractive for business, and this just “adds to the instability and uncertainty that businesses were already feeling” because of all the Trump tariffs, Nadjibulla said.

“Trump has made it clear that he’s interested in onshoring rather than friend-shoring.”

Apple, which was singled out by the Trump administration earlier this year over its production practices, plans to take a further step to highlight its commitment to boosting investment in the U.S.

The tech giant will pledge to spend an additional $100 billion on domestic manufacturing, a move that could ease tensions between the tech giant and President Trump who wants iPhones built in the United States.

A White House official on Wednesday said Trump will announce a new manufacturing program aimed to bring more of Apple’s supply chain to the United States, confirming an earlier report from Bloomberg.

Apple’s commitment will increase the Cupertino-based company’s U.S. investment to $600 billion over four years as it seeks to avoid the cost of tariffs.

The company announced a $500-billion U.S. investment commitment in February.

Nonetheless, Trump in May criticized Apple for expanding iPhone production in India, threatening to hit the company with a 25% tariff.

Apple and other tech companies have touted their U.S. commitments, but analysts and economists have said shifting manufacturing to the United States could take years and result in higher prices for smartphones and other popular electronics.

Some analysts have said it would take at least five years for Apple to shift production to the U.S. and the prices of iPhones could reach $3,500 if the smartphone was made in America.

The iPhone 16 Pro is made up of roughly 2,700 parts sourced from 187 suppliers in 28 countries, according to an April report from TechInsights.

As companies look to keep costs down and consumers watch their budgets, tariffs add another wrinkle to efforts to slash spending.

Taylor Rogers, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement, that the Trump and Apple’s announcement is “another win for our manufacturing industry that will simultaneously help reshore the production of critical components to protect America’s economic and national security.”

This week, Trump said he was doubling tariffs on India to 50%, stating in an executive order that the country’s government “is currently directly or indirectly importing Russian Federation oil.”

Apple didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The move marks the latest apparent effort by Apple to show its commitment to hiring U.S. workers.

Last month, the smartphone leader announced the opening of its Apple Manufacturing Academy in Detroit. The program begins Aug. 19 and offers free workshops on artificial intelligence and advanced manufacturing to small and medium-sized businesses.

Apple has more than 450,000 jobs with thousands of suppliers and partners across all 50 states.

While Apple designs its products in California, it also relies on a global supply chain involving various countries including China, Vietnam and India.

Apple is already spending more because of Trump’s tariffs. Last week, Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook said during an earnings call that the company has incurred roughly $800 million in tariff-related costs. Apple expects $1.1 billion in tariff-related costs in the fiscal fourth quarter ending in September.

The White House is expected to announce the new deal as early as Wednesday.

Apple will pledge $100bn for manufacturing in the United States that will focus on building more jobs across the country, the White House has said.

The investment is expected to be announced on Wednesday.

White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett said Apple was likely to make an investment announcement on Wednesday, as he discussed the financial pledges made by companies and countries under US President Donald Trump.

“They’re moving here in droves. This is trillions and trillions of dollars of commitments for people to build new factories here. In fact, you’re likely to see one today from Apple,” Hassett said in an interview with Fox Business Network.

Hassett did not elaborate further.

The investment will help move key parts of the Cupertino, California-based tech giant’s supply chain to the US, Bloomberg News reported, but details on the specifics were sparse.

“Today’s announcement with Apple is another win for our manufacturing industry that will simultaneously help reshore the production of critical components to protect America’s economic and national security,” Assistant White House Press Secretary Taylor Rogers said in a statement.

The president is slated to make an announcement at 4:30pm in Washington (20:30 GMT), according to the White House, which gave no specifics about the deal with the tech giant.

The latest investment

Apple said in February that it would spend $500bn in US investments in the next four years, which would include a giant factory in Texas for artificial intelligence servers and the addition of about 20,000 research and development jobs across the country.

Apple has many times pledged investments in the US in the last decade. In 2018, during Trump’s first term, the company pledged $350bn. In 2021, under former President Joe Biden, Apple announced a $430bn investment.

The investment comes after Trump warned that he would hit Apple with a 25 percent tariff if it did not move its manufacturing efforts to the US. Analysts have said such a shift is not realistic.

Dan Ives at Wedbush Securities said in a note that it would take at least five to 10 years to shift production to the US, meaning consumers would pay as much as $3,500 for an iPhone.

“We believe the concept of Apple producing iPhones in the US is a fairy tale that is not feasible,” Ives had previously said.

Apple did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In April, Apple had announced plans to move to India the assembly of the majority of the phones it sells to the US by the end of next year in an effort to reduce its reliance on China as the trade war between the US and China heats up. But Trump’s ire has now shifted to India and he has slapped the country with a 50 percent tariff over imports of Russian oil. It’s not clear if the latest developments will impact Apple’s India plans.

Apple’s stock surged on the looming US investment announcement. The company, which is traded under the ticker symbol APPL, is up more than 3.8 percent since the market opened as of 10:15am in New York (14:15 GMT) on Wednesday.