Apple will soon make (some) Mac Minis in the US

Apple is preparing to move some of its Mac Mini production to the US as part of the company’s ongoing efforts to appease the Trump administration’s push for domestic investment. Manufacturing is set to begin later this year in north Houston, Texas, at a Foxconn facility that currently assembles Apple’s AI servers.

“Apple is deeply committed to the future of American manufacturing, and we’re proud to significantly expand our footprint in Houston with the production of Mac Mini starting later this year,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in the announcement. “We began shipping advanced AI servers from Houston ahead of schedule, and we’re excited to accelerate that work even further.”

The development is part of Apple’s plans to invest $600 billion in the US over the next four years, a commitment it made after President Donald Trump threatened to slap a 25 percent tariff on products that Apple manufactures overseas. Most of that $600 billion spending isn’t tied to expanding domestic production, however.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Apple’s chief operating officer Sabih Khan said that the goal is to scale US production of the Mac Mini to meet local demand, but the company will continue manufacturing thousands of the desktop computers in Asia. Apple started building some of its Mac Pro computers in Austin, Texas, in 2013, but Khan notes that production at that facility has since dwindled due to low demand.

While the Mac Mini is Apple’s most affordable desktop computer, it makes up less than 1 percent of the company’s total sales, and less than 5 percent of global Mac sales, according to Consumer Intelligence Research Partners’ estimates. Khan said that Apple is optimistic about expanding Mac Mini production to Houston because demand is higher and more reliable compared to the Mac Pro. Both are just a fraction of the 240 million iPhones sold by the company each year, and Apple currently has no plans to move iPhone production from Asia to the US.