Rep. Ro Khanna, other lawmakers will press Apple CEO to bring back manufacturing jobs

Rep. Ro Khanna plans to push Apple CEO Tim Cook in a meeting to pull manufacturing jobs to America.

This comes as lawmakers express concern about winning the tech race against China.

Mr. Khanna, California Democrat, is part of a small group of lawmakers headed to the Golden State on Wednesday for meetings with entertainment industry leaders in Hollywood. House Select Committee on China Chairman Mike Gallagher, Wisconsin Republican, is directing the effort and will guide the lawmakers to Silicon Valley later this week, including to a meeting with Mr. Cook on Friday.

Mr. Khanna said Tuesday evening he will question Mr. Cook about bringing manufacturing work for Big Tech back to America, but the congressman thinks he knows how Apple’s leader will answer.

“We should ask and will ask, I’ve asked Tim Cook before, ‘How can we bring back manufacturing?’” Mr. Khanna told CNBC. “He will tell you that, ’You’ve got to bring back the supply chains, we’ve got to bring back the display, we’ve got to bring back the microelectronics.’”

Mr. Khanna said a lot of the technology was invented in the U.S., but America has watched as production moved offshore.

In the meeting with Disney CEO Bob Iger on Wednesday, Mr. Khanna said he wants to learn more to prevent China from swiping the entertainment company’s — and the country’s — intellectual property.

“What I want to hear with Bob Iger is how can we make sure that America is lowering the trade deficit with China, increasing our exports, our soft culture, around the world but not making any of our intellectual property vulnerable to China,” Mr. Khanna said on CNBC.

Alongside the meetings with Mr. Iger on Wednesday, the lawmakers are set to meet with screenwriters, producers and studio leaders. The lawmakers are holding the meetings in private to give Hollywood’s entertainment industry a forum to candidly answer questions about censorship and concessions made to China without fear of retribution from the country’s communist government, according to a source familiar with the China committee’s plans.

In Silicon Valley, the lawmakers also are scheduled to dine with major venture capitalists, such as Marc Andreessen and Vinod Khosla, and hear from companies such as Microsoft and Palantir. The group is also making a trip to Stanford University to meet with China policy experts.

Mr. Cook has experience parrying with lawmakers. The Apple CEO testified before an antitrust panel of the House Judiciary Committee in 2020.

Mr. Khanna’s questions about bringing Apple manufacturing to America arrive as rumors have swirled that Apple is working on a new virtual reality product.

Mr. Cook would not confirm the existence of a rumored virtual reality headset in an interview with GQ published this week, but he detailed Apple’s interest in new alternate reality products.