Apple's $500 billion US investment may help secure tariff exemptions, Jefferies says

** Shares of iPhone maker Apple AAPL.O slump 6% to $210.05 premarket after Trump announces reciprocal tariffs, including on China

** Trump said on Wednesday that he would impose a 10% baseline tariff on all imports to the U.S. and higher duties on dozens of other countries

** Jefferies expects $500 billion U.S. investment may help secure tariff exemptions; AAPL was exempted in 2018 during Trump's earlier administration

** In February, AAPL said it would spend $500 billion in U.S. investments in the next four years that also includes a giant factory in Texas for AI servers

** "We believe such a (investment) commitment will likely help AAPL obtain tariff exemption" - Jefferies

** Currently ~15% of iPhones (~35 million units) are assembled in India, 85% assembled in China, and about 33% of global iPhone sales are to the U.S. (76 million), Jefferies estimates

** However, in a worse case tariff scenario, brokerage projects AAPL's FY25 net profit would decline by 14%

** Up to last close, AAPL had fallen 10.5% YTD