It is not the role of the President of the United States to tell individual companies where to produce their products. Dictators tell companies how to operate their businesses, not elected presidents.
The role of the president is to devise, sell to Congress, and implement regulatory, legal, and tax policies that create economic conditions favorable to companies locating manufacturing facilities in the United States. Where individual companies, such as Apple, decide to locate is for the company management and board of directors to decide.
The founding fathers would be shocked to hear a president telling the CEO of one of the largest and most successful American companies how to do his job. They would consider such direction an act of tyranny.
I get the opposite impression when I read founding father documents. I would suggest they could not imagine entanglements on the level of US industry today.
There is a difference between encouraging and telling.
Here’s the quote that I found off-putting:
“I had a little problem with Tim Cook yesterday,” Trump said. “I said to him, ‘my friend, I treated you very good.’”
President Trump tends to be fixated on personal relationships, sometimes to the point of emphasizing them over policies. How many times has he hailed Xi as a great friend?
The very idea that a company or CEO is “treated good” is pretty wacky. Why should the US government treat ANYONE good or bad except if the policy matches the national interest? And if the policy aligns with the national interest, it is not a matter of good or bad or favoritism.
If we observe the actions of our President we learn that often as not, his first comment is soon cast aside as he gets what he really wants.