Apple Craves RAM and Pleads With Trump to Allow Buying Chinese Modules

Apple is facing a hardware-cost crisis unmatched in its recent history. Increases in component costs have reached critical levels, pushing management to study drastic measures.

Tim Cook, in a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, described the current surge in memory chip prices as a phenomenon never seen in over forty years of experience in the tech sector.

Apple Needs More RAM and Looks to China, but There is a Problem

Market data confirm this alarming perception: from the first quarter of 2025, contract prices for 12 GB LPDDR5X modules have essentially tripled.

Between the end of the first quarter and the beginning of the second quarter of 2026, the cost hovered around $120. Since the start of the year, these modules have undergone an increase of $68.8, recently reaching a level of $145 per unit.

This escalation, aggravated by the parallel rise in flash storage costs, is having a severe impact on profit margins. For a 256 GB iPhone 17 Pro, marketed in 2025, the memory components accounted for only 9% of the total cost of materials.

For the equivalent variant of the upcoming iPhone 18 Pro, this percentage is set to soar to an impressive 27%. The direct consequences for consumers have already manifested themselves through the heavy price hikes applied to the entire Mac and iPad lineup.

Political Pressure on the White House

To break the dominance of the three big global suppliers, namely Samsung, SK hynix and Micron, the Californian company has decided to embark on a diplomatically insidious path.

The only practicable way out to obtain essential resources at affordable prices, excluding the extremely costly construction of its own silicon foundries, leads directly to China.

According to a report published by the Financial Times, Apple’s executives have launched a determined lobbying campaign directed at the Trump administration to obtain an extraordinary trade waiver.

The request centers on the possibility of importing large batches of DRAM memory from the Chinese company CXMT. This is a bet with significant political implications, considering that the Asian company is currently on the Pentagon’s blacklist due to its alleged ties to the People’s Liberation Army of China.

Despite these obvious obstacles, the representatives of the American company have already established contacts with the United States Department of Commerce, extending their requests concurrently to various government officials and Washington’s allies.

Production Capacity and Negotiation Strategies

The interest in CXMT e8 is driven by purely industrial reasons. The Asian manufacturer represents the only entity capable of providing the necessary volumes to curb Cupertino’s costs, thanks to an extremely aggressive production roadmap.

The Chinese plants are indeed rapidly increasing their output: from the current 200,000 wafers per month, capacity will reach 300,000 wafers per month by the end of the year.

Even in the eventuality that CXMT could not fully meet the colossal demand generated by the assembly of iPhones, its mere inclusion in the supply chain would guarantee Apple an incredibly valuable bargaining power.

Adding a new player to the negotiations, the American giant could finally negotiate from a position of strength with the three dominant companies in the market.

If this move succeeds and the government authorizes imports, the opening would not be limited to RAM memories alone. A success on this front would also open doors to YMTC, the Chinese giant of flash storage, marking a massive and definitive return of Beijing to the logistics of supplying American hardware.