The arrival of the controversial billionaire Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States has had a huge amount of consequences in all areas of American and foreign life. Now it is Apple that is seen as the protagonist of one of these consequences by confirming that one of the most important items – politically speaking – has been increased with the coming to power of the American businessman.
Tim Cook and Apple have had a fairly public relationship with President Donald Trump during his tenure so far as President of the most important country in the world. Cook has had several meetings with Trump, as well as with several members of his administration, and the new numbers revealed last night in an American television show suggest that Apple has invested a huge amount of its assets in lobbying the Trump administration.
According to information from the US media Recode, Apple spent 2.2 million dollars in a period from April 1 of this year to June 30 in concepts to influence government chaired by Donald Trump. That figure is almost double the amount that the company set aside to do the same during the term of the previous president, Barack Obama, during the same period last year. In it, Apple spent a total amount that amounted to 1.2 million dollars. Apple says that most of those 2.2 million dollars have gone to a fund to put pressure because of tax, surveillance and immigration reform.
During the first three months of Trump's term in the White House, Apple spent about $ 1.4 million on this concept, which ultimately amounts to a total of $ 3.6 million during his first six months as president. The jump in spending to exert political pressure is a trend change for Apple, which compared to the previous data, only allocated around $ 730,000 to pressure President Barack Obama during his first six months of 2009.
The company specifically reveals in its presentation that a strong focus of its political pressures has been on immigration. Tim Cook has confronted Trump directly on this issue several times, while he is publicly in clear opposition to the efforts launched from the Trump administration to limit the immigration of some specific countries.
In addition to immigration, another of the battlefields to which Apple has allocated funds to exert political pressure has been that of climate change, patent reform, accessibility for people, health initiatives, diversity and education. Apple has already publicly expressed its views on these issues in the past.
In order to understand these figures well, it is convenient to compare these data with those of other large technology companies. Google spent about 5.4 million on lobbies against Trump during the same period, while Amazon spent 3.2 million and Facebook 2.3 million.
Many have criticized the growing number of political positions taken by Apple and Tim Cook recently. Cook believes, however, that it is better to express the views in the first person than to sit and wait for others to do so:
“Personally, I have never thought that the second row is a suitable place to be. The way to put pressure on them is to be in the front row. And we get involved when we agree and we get involved when we disagree. I think it's very important to do that, since things don't change just by shouting. Things are changed by showing everyone why your way of doing things is the best. In many ways, it is a debate of ideas. ”
On the website of the US Senate itself, you can find Apple's registration as an authorized lobby group.
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