The Financial Post reports in its Thursday edition that escalating attacks from the White House threaten to further erode Apple's profit outlook, suggesting the stock's struggles this year are far from over. A Bloomberg dispatch to the Post says U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday threatened to levy a 25-per-cent tariff on the company's products if it does not shift iPhone production to the U.S. Some analysts are skeptical the tariffs will come to pass, but any movement in this direction will put the company in a position where it either has to absorb the higher costs, weighing on its earnings and margins, or pass along higher prices to consumers. "The threat may be politically motivated but markets can't ignore the headline risk," said Haris Khurshid at Karobaar Capital. "This kind of tariff rhetoric, even if it never materializes, chips away at investor confidence. You can't run a $3-trillion company with a trade grenade hanging overhead." Apple is the worst-performing Magnificent Seven stock this year, with a 2025 drop of 21 per cent. Once it was pointed out that Apple would be in a competitive bind with foreign smart phone makers, Mr. Trump quickly expanded his 25-per-cent tariff to all foreign-made smart phones.