Apple is reportedly devising a new way to win at President Donald Trump’s trade war: Go directly for the president’s ego. On Wednesday, Trump announced that Apple would be spared a looming 100 percent tariff on semiconductors, a penalty that would have made iPhones much more expensive in markets around the world. Apple received the exemption, Reuters reported, on the same day that it pledged another $100 billion in US investments and gave Trump a one-of-a-kind, custom-made statue.

The statue, Apple CEO Tim Cook told reporters, was made by Corning, an Apple supplier that has provided specialty glass to iPhones for years. A former US Marine Corps corporal now at Apple, Cook said, sculpted a design using Corning’s glass-cutting technology to slice a large glass circle with a 3D Apple logo in the center. Cook said that the statue had arrived from Utah, along with a 24-karat gold base engraved with Trump’s name. Cook finished the gift with a handwritten note that read “Made in America.”

Trump, who has spent years prodding companies to make more products in the US, appeared to enjoy the symbolism. At the White House ceremony where Trump was presented with the gift, he confirmed that Apple, and “any company that’s building plants in the United States,” will be spared “no charge” when tariffs on semiconductors go into effect. The announcement was a major victory for Apple, which had come under months of direct criticism from Trump over where it builds its supply chain.

Wednesday’s news is a capstone to a rough few months for Apple. In the spring, Trump railed against Apple for shifting production of iPhones to India instead of bringing it to the US. He followed that in April with a vow that his trade policies would soon result in “Made in America” iPhones. Trump was more testy by May, when he told reporters in the Middle East, “I have a little problem with Tim Cook,” an allusion to Apple’s overseas manufacturing. Reportedly, Trump later called Cook directly to make his feelings clear. “We are treating you really good,” he said, according to a source with direct knowledge of the call. “We put up with all the plants you built in China for years. We are not interested in you building in India.”

Analysts, in the meantime, have said that moving the assembly of iPhones to the US would be a highly difficult process that could take years, if it is even possible at all. But Trump’s team doubled down on the messaging, with US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick musing that Apple was working on “robotic arms” to recreate the speed and precision of its Chinese factories back home.

Cook’s Charm and Apple’s Calculated Investments

In the end, Trump’s Wednesday announcement suggests that the president has backed off his ultimatum. Whereas previously he had threatened a 25 percent Apple tariff if it did not start making iPhones in the US, he now praises Apple’s moves as “a significant step toward the ultimate goal of ensuring that iPhones sold in America also are made in America.” For now, he seems to have taken a pause.

Cook, for his part, has promised that iPhone components like semiconductors, glass, and Face ID modules are made in the US. He gave no clear timeline for when final assembly might happen in the US and, once again, made it clear that iPhones would continue to be assembled abroad “for a while.”

This playbook of vague, future investments and symbolic token gestures to the president is not new for Apple. During Trump’s first term, Cook began very early to effectively charm the president with promises to invest more in the US, while carefully dancing around his more aggressive demands. In 2017, Trump boasted that Apple had plans to build three “big, beautiful” plants in the US. In the end, only one plant opened, and it was used to make face masks, not consumer electronics. In a similar case in 2019, Trump took a victory tour of an Apple plant in Texas that he claimed was building iPhones. Instead, Apple dedicated the plant to MacBook Pros, rather than iPhones.

Apple has since said that it will invest $600 billion in the US over the next four years. While that sounds like a lot, analysts speaking to Reuters said that the number was par for the course, in line with what Apple already planned to spend. It also matches the investment levels that Apple promised during Biden’s time and during Trump’s first term. Apple may be offering very little in the way of new commitments.

Trump, for his part, has threatened that companies that don’t follow through on their investment pledges could be hit with retroactive tariffs. But Apple, as far as we can tell, is just continuing to do business as usual, including by continuing to build iPhones overseas. The calculation on tariffs hasn’t changed, but Trump isn’t making Apple pay a price for that—at least not yet.

Wall Street, meanwhile, is viewing Apple’s latest gambit as a smart move. Nancy Tengler, CEO and CIO at Laffer Tengler Investments, a fund that owns Apple shares, told Reuters, Apple’s approach is “a savvy solution to the president’s demand that Apple manufacture all iPhones in the U.S.”

Cook has, once again, charmed the president with well-timed, appealing gestures and symbolic investments that offer Trump the political victories he craves, while buying Apple time in the trade war. Trump will continue to call that progress toward “Made in America.” But for now, it looks like Apple will continue to keep its most sophisticated manufacturing in other countries—and avoid steep tariffs in the process.