Companies have closed major facilities in the United States to reopen in China. By way of explanation, executives say they are competing with Apple for shareholders. If they cannot rival Apple’s growth and profit margins, they won’t survive.
They don't care about workers, they care about shareholders. If Apple says to its shareholder "We'll earn 30% less next quarter, but we'll create 30000 new jobs in the US!" how do you think the market would react ? They'd sell like crazy! The share price would plummet. No one wants to loose money.
Part of the gist of the article was that US regulations make building out flexible manufacturing capacity rapidly incredibly difficult. Quicker to do it in China. Ironic considered the PRC's legendary red tape (no pun).
Apple also pays taxes to the US Treasury. These taxes, in addition to those on the incomes of its stakeholders, are meant to repay the presumed social debt Apple gains from being here. Whether those rates are set badly or the taxes squandered isn't Apple's question.
A person across the Pacific could similarly ask, if Apple hired only Americans, why Apple insists on supporting the richest country while denying people in East Asia a meager income for a crime no greater than not being American.
You mean, why shouldn't Apple pay even more to support families it's already been supporting all these years? Do you honestly think Apple, as a corporation, has been a net-negative to the taxman?
Enforcement of Apple's intellectual property? Protection of their brand and trademarks? The contracts they rely on? The banks they rely on? Safe passage of ships and aircraft carrying raw materials and finished goods? The security and safety of their executives and engineers?
These are all benefits received by Apple USA, which pays income taxes to the US.
Apple's Chinese subsidiaries (which is what we were discussing) do not receive those benefits from the US government, and hence do not pay for them.