Apple may have discovered a new way to fight President Donald Trump’s trade war: flatter his ego. On Wednesday, Trump said Apple will be exempt from a soon-to-be-implemented 100 percent tariff on semiconductors that, according to experts, would have significantly jacked up the price of iPhones all around the world. The exemption, Reuters reported, came just hours after Apple committed to spending an additional $100 billion in the U.S., and just as Trump was presented with a personalized statue made with one-off, gold-plated parts.

Apple CEO Tim Cook, who explained how the statue was made, said the base of the statue, which features the U.S. president’s name etched into a 24-karat gold sheet, was cut by Corning, a supplier of specialty glass to Apple. A former U.S. Marine Corps corporal who now works at Apple designed the rest of the statue, which was cut into a large circle of glass with a bold Apple logo at its center. The statue, Cook said, was made in Utah. For the capstone, Cook added a signed note: “Made in America.”

For Trump, who has pressured companies for months to move their manufacturing to the U.S., the gesture seemed to resonate. In the Oval Office on Wednesday, Trump not only said Apple would be exempted from the tariff, but that any company that builds a factory in the U.S. will be too. “We’re not taxing them, that’s the big thing,” Trump said. “We’re talking about semiconductors, which are $360 billion a year, but they are not going to be taxed. They are going to pay no charge.”

The president has railed on Apple for months over the company’s supply chain. The news of the tariff exemption is the latest reprieve for Apple in what has been a turbulent spring. Earlier this year, Trump slammed Apple for moving some iPhone production from China to India rather than relocating it to the U.S. In April, he even went as far as to say his trade policies would bring about “Made in America” iPhones. By May, Trump’s frustrations were clearer. In the middle of a trip through the Middle East, Trump said aloud that he had “a little problem with Tim Cook.”

In a phone call with Cook that was reported by Reuters, Trump appeared to push Apple on the issue. “We are treating you really good, we put up with all the plants you built in China for years, we are not interested in you building in India,” Trump said.

Experts have been quick to point out, though, that assembly of iPhones in the U.S. is a far more difficult and time-consuming proposition that could take years—if it’s even possible at all. Trump’s administration pushed this criticism back. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick once claimed Apple was even looking into “robotic arms” that would be able to imitate the accuracy of the Chinese factories making iPhones in the U.S.

Cook Says No Specific Timelines, Trump Relents for Now

Cook has since gone out of his way to emphasize that components of iPhones, including semiconductors, glass, and Face ID modules, are already made in the U.S. But he also gave no specific timeframes for when final assembly of iPhones could come to the U.S., and noted again that it would remain overseas “for a while.”

Apple has been here before. In Trump’s first term, Cook doted on Trump with a series of pledges to invest in the U.S. but never acquiesced to his demands that Apple build iPhones in the U.S. In 2017, Trump had promised three “big, beautiful” plants would be coming to America from Apple. But only one plant materialized, and that one made face masks. In 2019, Trump was again taken on a tour of an Apple plant in Texas that he promised would produce iPhones. Apple would end up designating that plant to build MacBook Pros instead.

Apple now says it will spend $600 billion total in the U.S. over the next four years. While that number is large, Reuters noted that the figure is in line with Apple’s typical spending and closely resembles the investment pledges that Apple made to both the Biden administration and Trump’s first term. In other words, it may not represent new or additional investment at all.

Trump has threatened to hit companies that don’t follow through on those pledges with retroactive tariffs. But Apple, so far, seems to be planning to carry on with business as usual. Tariffs, as far as it can tell, will stay at zero. Trump seems to be letting it go—for now.

Apple’s moves have been met by applause on Wall Street. “The optics and PR that they have landed with this move is a savvy solution to the president’s demand that Apple manufacture all iPhones in the U.S.,” Nancy Tengler, CEO and CIO of Laffer Tengler Investments, a company that has Apple shares, told Reuters.

For now, Cook has expertly deployed his charm, a personal gift for Trump, and a spending pledge that Apple was likely going to make anyway to win a short-term reprieve. Trump has agreed, for now, to move the goalposts on iPhones, and, according to experts, Apple will continue to assemble its most complex products abroad.