Apple CEO Tim Cook gave a bit of insight into his April 25 meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in a recent interview with Bloomberg Television.
Cook met with Trump in the Oval Office in late April amid a brewing trade war between the U.S. and China. The Trump administration instituted 25 percent tariffs on at least $50 billion worth of products from China, sparking retaliation. In the interview on “The David Rubenstein Show: Peer-to-Peer Conversations,” Cook acknowledged that previous trade policies were flawed but said Trump’s move is also problematic.
“It’s true, undoubtedly true, that not everyone has been advantaged from that — in either country — and we’ve got to work on that,” Cook said. “But I felt that tariffs were not the right approach there, and I showed him some more analytical kinds of things to demonstrate why.”
Also discussed during the meeting was the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which is designed to prevent the deportation of young immigrants that were brought into the U.S. as children. The Trump administration attempted to end the program, but their move was blocked by a Federal judge back in January.
Apple and other tech firms published an open letter to the President following his signing of the executive order ending the program, urging him to reconsider. Cook told Rubenstein during the interview, “We’re only one ruling away from a catastrophic case there.”
During the rest of the interview Cook discussed the new U.S. corporate tax policy, Apple Music’s reaching the 50 million free and paid subscriber milestone, the Cupertino firm’s growing services segment, and much more.
