After a reduction in spending on lobbying (lobbying, in Portuguese) in 2018, the Apple returned to investing in the White House last year, according to a new statistic published by MarketWatch. More precisely, Apple applied $ 7.4 million in its relationship with the American government in 2019, a value record for the company – but considerably less than some of its competitors.
For those who do not know, lobbying is a type of influential activity in which a group / company invests in the relationship with the government in order to obtain certain benefits (or to be favored) in government decisions. While many may find this to have a negative connotation, in the United States this is a common and legal practice.
THE MarketWatch also analyzed that Apple started investing more with lobbying in 2016, the year Donald Trump took over the presidency. Previously, the company had never invested more than $ 5 million with the practice, but in the past three years they have increased considerably.
This increase, however, was not enough to place Apple among the companies that spend the most on lobbying in the USA. In fact, the Cupertino giant is nowhere near as long as the Facebook spent $ 16.7 million, a Amazon it’s the Google invested $ 16.1 million and $ 11.8 million, respectively.
Under American law, companies are not required to disclose anything beyond the amount invested in lobbying, so there is no way to know precisely the fate of these multi-million dollars. Nevertheless, we know that the company hired a pro-Trump lobbyist to possibly ease the effects of tariffs on products imported from China – which is why Apple may have sacked a few million more.
via 9to5Mac