America First is driving jobs and a welcome corporate return



“They’re coming home — they’re all coming home.”

That’s how President Donald Trump described Apple’s decision to invest $600 billion in the American economy, $100 billion more than initially expected.

For decades, corporate America packed up and left. Under President Trump, companies are coming back.

Standing alongside Apple CEO Tim Cook, President Trump declared: “These investments will directly create more than 20,000 brand-new American jobs and many thousands more at Apple suppliers like Corning, Broadcom, Texas Instruments, and Samsung.”

This is proof that the America First agenda is working.

Bringing industry back

America First isn’t just a campaign slogan. It’s a movement rooted in economic patriotism. For decades, global corporations were incentivized to offshore jobs and close American factories, leaving once-thriving towns in economic ruin.

President Trump is reversing that damage. His America First agenda creates the conditions for companies to thrive here at home — cutting taxes, slashing red tape, rebuilding infrastructure, and putting American workers first in trade deals and policy decisions.

Apple’s investment is just the latest example. From Silicon Valley to the Rust Belt, companies are responding favorably to the president’s policies, which are rewarding their investments on U.S. soil.

In the past six months alone, more than $17 trillion in new investment, factories, and infrastructure projects have been announced. From semiconductor plants in Arizona to advanced steel manufacturing in Pennsylvania, we are witnessing the rebirth of American manufacturing.

Challenging China

And America First doesn’t stop at building new factories. It also means building the capacity to win strategic fights — including the tech war with China.

One example is the Trump administration’s recent decision toheed U.S. intelligence experts and greenlight the merger between Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Juniper Networks.

For years, national security experts have warned about Huawei, the Chinese tech giant with deep ties to the Chinese Communist Party. Huawei’s global dominance in 5G and enterprise networking poses a serious threat to cybersecurity, national defense, and communications freedom. The problem wasn’t identifying the threat. The problem was that no U.S. company could match Huawei — that is, until now. Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi are helping the U.S. finally compete in this industry.

Another example is President Trump’s executive order jump-starting America’s rare-earth and critical mineral supply chains — an industry China has dominated for years. From electric vehicles to advanced weapons systems, the modern economy runs on rare-earths. Yet for too long, America depended on Chinese exports to power everything from smartphones to fighter jets.

That is changing under President Trump, who signed an executive order cutting red tape, fast-tracking permits, and directing federal agencies to prioritize American sourcing and refining of rare-earth and critical minerals. As a result, U.S. companies are now increasingly investing in domestic mining operations in America, laying the foundation for greater American economic independence.

In June, Trump even signed an agreement with China to resume exports of U.S. rare-earth minerals. The global tide on U.S. exports is now turning.

RELATED: The founder betting big on American manufacturing

Photo by BRANDONJ74 via Getty Images

America First is winning

America First means just that: America first. Whether it’s encouraging companies such as Apple to invest here at home or ensuring that U.S. tech companies can go toe to toe with China, President Trump is delivering real results.

For decades, corporate America packed up and left. Under President Trump, companies are coming back. They’re investing in our people, our cities, and our future. That’s not just good policy. That’s what winning looks like.

India surpasses China in Apple exports to US, up 240% from last year



India has reportedly overtaken China in smartphone manufacturing in the second quarter of 2025, marking an unprecedented shift away from Chinese tech manufacturing amid an uncertain trade environment.

In the past six months, the Trump administration has shaken the global economy with aggressive tariffs and trade deals. Many companies have been forced to respond by adjusting their manufacturing practices, and the smartphone industry is no exception.

'Apple has scaled up its production capacity in India over the last several years as a part of its "China Plus One" strategy and has opted to dedicate most of its export capacity in India to supply the US market so far in 2025.'

According to a new report by research firm Canalys, the share of U.S. smartphone shipments dropped from 61% to 25% in the last year. The report goes on to say that India picked up this dramatic decline and smartphones made in India now account for 44% of the total volume of shipments to the U.S.

This marks a 240% year-on-year increase in the total volume of "Made in India" smartphones.

RELATED: Microsoft 'escort' program gave China keys to Pentagon

President Donald Trump signs a presidential memorandum targeting China's economic aggression on Thursday, March 22, 2025. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The Canalys report cited the "uncertain trade landscape" as a major contributing factor of this shift away from China during the ongoing tariff war between the United States and China.

"India became the leading manufacturing hub for smartphones sold in the U.S. for the very first time in Q2 2025," said Sanyam Chaurasia, principal analyst at Canalys, "largely driven by Apple's accelerated supply chain shift to India amid an uncertain trade landscape between the U.S. and China."

Many analysts have cited Apple's "China Plus One" strategy as a leading cause of this shift in its manufacturing diversification process. This refers to Apple's shift toward manufacturing in other Asian countries, specifically India and Vietnam. Vietnam has signaled that it is open to becoming a greater technology manufacturing hub, and Samsung relies more heavily on this country than other companies already.

"Apple has scaled up its production capacity in India over the last several years as a part of its 'China Plus One' strategy and has opted to dedicate most of its export capacity in India to supply the U.S. market so far in 2025," Chaurasia said.

As an AInvest analyst said, China Plus One "aims to mitigate the risks of over-reliance on a single region while leveraging lower labor costs in Southeast Asia."

China has been the manufacturing hub for Apple for many years, so fully untethering from the manufacturing giant may appear unworkable as a strategy to quickly shift to U.S. manufacturing at scale, which the Trump administration is pushing for. China is still the hub for premium product assembly and a key supplier of semiconductors, which complicates the prospect of a full disentanglement.

In March, Bloomberg reported that Trump had asked Apple to stop building out factories in India and instead to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. The company reportedly deemed this untenable for reasons including labor costs and the cost of scaling manufacturing infrastructure in the U.S.

President Trump has made a substantial effort to push companies to bring manufacturing back to the U.S., but the tariffs have led to differing outcomes as companies assess their long-term strategies.

"This is a familiar Trump tactic: He wants to push Apple to localize more and build a supply chain in the U.S., which is not going to happen overnight," Tarun Pathak, research director at tech analytics firm Counterpoint, told Bloomberg. "Making in the U.S. will also be much more expensive than assembling iPhones in India."

Apple did not respond to a request for comment from Return.

Apple Puts America At Risk By Partnering With China

Patrick McGee's new book, Apple in China, shows how the most important company in the world sold America out to the CCP.

Dem Gov. Wes Moore Heads To Luxury Retreat As Rep In State Sounds Alarm On Green Energy Project

'It’s not an American company'

Apple preaches a gospel of inclusion — but proves Christianity isn't included



According to some, Christianity is in vogue.

A recent New York Times article, for example, called attention to the fact that “necklaces with cross pendants are appearing with renewed prevalence” on “red carpets, on social media, at protests by high-ranking Democrats and in the White House.”

To make fun of the practice is nothing short of sacrilege.

But even celebrities donning cross necklaces are not enough to convince mainstream television producers that the world’s largest religious group deserves the same basic respect as any other religion or worldview.

Episode six of the popular Apple TV+ show “Your Friends & Neighbors” shamelessly depicts characters desecrating the Eucharist — what Catholics believe is the very body of Christ – inside a Catholic church. The depiction reeks of intolerance and insult toward Catholicism, and it has no place being produced and promoted by Apple, a company that claims diversity and inclusion as core values.

The least Apple should do is issue a formal apology to viewers. Even better, the company should retract the episode in keeping with its tolerance policies.

Catholic or not, viewers can tell that the scene in question bears little relevance to the show’s plot, making it nothing more than a mean-spirited and targeted attempt to mock Catholicism. In the scene, two main characters break into a Catholic church, steal consecrated hosts from the tabernacle, eat them as snacks, and profane the Eucharist before engaging in sexual activity in the pews.

Despite how Apple inappropriately portrays it, the Eucharist is far from a mere piece of bread or meaningless cup of wine.

Catholics believe that it is the body, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ himself. The practice of receiving communion was instituted by Christ at the Last Supper, and since then, receiving his body at Mass is “the source and summit of the Christian life.”

To make fun of the practice is nothing short of sacrilege.

RELATED: New York Times discovers cross necklaces — then things get predictably absurd

sedmak/iStock/Getty Images Plus

What’s more, Apple’s affront comes at a time when Catholics are in a celebratory and hopeful frame of mind following the recent election of our new pope, Leo XIV.

It is also deeply disturbing that Apple would go so far as to break its own commitment to “a North Star of dignity, respect, and opportunity for everyone,” as its mission statement reads. The company claims its values “create a culture of collaboration where different experiences, backgrounds, and perspectives come together to make something magical and meaningful. ... We’re not all the same. And that remains one of our greatest strengths.”

But promoting content that degrades the Catholic faith directly violates this principle. It also directly contradicts Apple CEO Tim Cook’s self-proclaimed “reverence for religious freedom.” Cook explained in a 2015 opinion editorial that “Apple is open. Open to everyone, regardless of where they come from, what they look like, how they worship or who they love.”

Unfortunately, Apple’s blasphemy is part of a nationwide targeting of Catholicism that has permeated our culture, even while influencers adorn themselves in Christian jewelry.

Since 2020, more than 500 Catholic churches have suffered physical attacks and vandalism including acts of arson, spray-painting and graffiti of satanic messages, rocks and bricks thrown through windows, and statues destroyed. Likewise, in 2024, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer released a video of herself placing a Dorito chip on Canadian journalist Liz Plank’s tongue as if to mimic a Catholic priest administering communion. After pushback from offended Catholics, Whitmer issued an apology.

RELATED: The dark logic behind Gretchen Whitmer's black Dorito 'Eucharist' mockery

Now, faithful Catholics are calling on Apple to remove its blasphemous episode of “Your Friends & Neighbors” from its platform and return to its guiding principle of diversity and tolerance for all perspectives, including the practices of Catholicism.

We hope that Catholics will no longer have to endure such discriminatory and hateful content when they watch shows meant to entertain and enlighten viewers of all backgrounds.

‘Blatant Disrespect:’ Catholic Advocacy Group Calls For Removal Of Apple TV Episode Mocking The Eucharist

[rebelmouse-proxy-image https://thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-10-at-2.52.45 PM-1200x675.png crop_info="%7B%22image%22%3A%20%22https%3A//thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-10-at-2.52.45%5Cu202fPM-1200x675.png%22%7D" expand=1]CatholicVote confronted Apple’s outright mockery of the Eucharist in Your Friends and Neighbors, calling it 'blatant disrespect.'

Cammack Drops Hammer On Big Tech With Bill To Smash Apple, Google’s Walled Gardens

'Give consumers choice in how they access apps'

Apple Pledges $500 Billion US Investment Following Trump's China Tariffs

As President Donald Trump pushes to revive domestic manufacturing and impose tariffs on other countries, Apple announced Monday that it will commit more than $500 billion to expanding its facilities and investments in the United States over the next four years.

The post Apple Pledges $500 Billion US Investment Following Trump's China Tariffs appeared first on .

When it comes to new friends, Republicans should trust but verify



The enthusiasm surrounding Donald Trump’s inauguration last week highlighted the breadth and diversity of the president’s coalition. Among those attending were American technology leaders, including Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg. However, conservatives should hesitate before fully welcoming these figures into the America First movement.

While the GOP rightly celebrates the powerful allies surrounding President Trump, the party must uphold its foundational conservative principles. Republicans should avoid capitulating to the liberal ideologies often espoused by the tech industry and should not overlook the past actions of these business leaders.

To prove their political transformation is genuine, tech leaders need to take meaningful steps to counter the decade-long vilification of President Trump and his supporters.

Zuckerberg, who once sported hoodies but now discusses “masculine energy” on Joe Rogan’s podcast, allowed his Facebook platform in 2021 to bow to Biden administration pressures and censor dissenting opinions on the COVID-19 pandemic.

Similarly, Cook’s Apple Newsfeed, Pichai’s Google search engine, and Bezos’ Washington Post played roles in suppressing critical information. Their actions contributed to the promotion of draconian lockdowns. These lockdowns, in turn, enabled widespread vote-by-mail, which, according to MIT’s Election Data and Science Lab, has been linked to higher rates of fraud compared to in-person voting, even among scholars who generally view election fraud as rare.

Worse, Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, personally contributed hundreds of millions of dollars to an organization that provided ballot drop boxes to facilitate the 2020 election. Ninety percent of those were in Democrat-leaning counties.

To his credit, Zuckerberg has since admitted to mishandling the public health crisis. The young billionaire publicly rebuked the Biden White House for launching its censorship campaign against Facebook, but he didn’t have to succumb.

And let’s not forget how Big Tech suppressed the Hunter Biden laptop story. The Washington Post, whose slogan was “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” also cast plenty of shade on the New York Post’s reporting of “Hunter Biden’s alleged laptop.”

It's also worth remembering that in 2021, Apple and Google removed the social network Parler from their app stores and Amazon threw it off its cloud web hosting service. The corporations claimed that the platform, founded as a free-speech alternative to the censorious, pre-Elon Musk Twitter, was responsible for spreading violent content and contributing to the “insurrection” on January 6. The move left hundreds of thousands of conservatives without a virtual home.

Before millions of disaffected Democrats joined Trump’s cultural movement, conservatives watched in frustration as the “very fine people” lie from Charlottesville was allowed to circulate unchecked online. Technology leaders were too focused on elevating the MeToo and Black Lives Matter narratives to counteract what could have been easily debunked with a straightforward analysis of Trump’s actual statement.

Today, identifying as a common-sense conservative may be considered cool, but not long ago, Republicans were dismissed as backwater bumpkins and ostracized in social circles. It’s fair to say that major tech companies contributed to the public prejudice against conservatives through their platforms.

While Zuckerberg and Bezos have distanced their companies from the divisive diversity, equity, and inclusion framework that dominates woke corporate culture, companies like Apple and Microsoft are expanding their DEI programs. They claim these initiatives foster a “culture of belonging” and promote inclusivity.

To prove their political transformation is genuine, tech leaders need to take meaningful steps to counter the decade-long vilification of President Trump and his supporters. Incorporating America First policies into their corporate practices would be a good start.

For instance, instead of manufacturing iPhones in China, Apple CEO Tim Cook could explore plans to build an Apple plant in states like Michigan or Nevada. A city such as Detroit, which has one of the highest unemployment rates among major U.S. cities, could greatly benefit from the economic boost an Apple facility would provide.

Similarly, many American merchants selling on Amazon have seen their sales stagnate due to the influx of counterfeit, low-cost Chinese products on the platform. To support U.S. businesses, Jeff Bezos could take action to prevent Chinese sellers from undercutting American entrepreneurs.

Conservatives are compassionate, kind, and tolerant people, but expanding our coalition shouldn’t require compromising core principles. Nor should it mean quickly forgetting the criticism and attacks we endured from those who now want to align with us. While we can welcome their change in rhetoric, we should also hold them accountable to back their words with real actions.

‘Beg And Plead’: Why Big Tech Is Falling In Line With Trump

'Overton window has shifted'