By Rolfe Winkler

For Tim Cook, the hits keep coming.

On Friday, President Trump targeted Apple with new demands that the company make iPhones in the U.S., threatening 25% tariffs if the company doesn't comply. "Rise and shine Tim Cook," Trump whisperer Laura Loomer posted on X, reminding the Apple CEO he is at the center of the president's trade bull's-eye.

That is just one of the threats Cook has confronted in what has appeared to be a no good, very bad year for Apple. Aside from Trump, Cook is facing off against two U.S. judges, European and worldwide regulators, state and federal lawmakers, and even a creator of the iPhone, to say nothing of the cast of rivals outrunning Apple in artificial intelligence.

Each is a threat to Apple's hefty profit margins, long the company's trademark and the reason investors drove its valuation above $3 trillion before any other company. Shareholders are still Cook's most important constituency. The stock's 25% fall from its peak shows their concern about whether he -- or anyone -- can navigate the choppy 2025 waters.

What can be said for Apple is that the company is patient, and that has often paid off in the past.

This past week, a key architect of the iPhone, Jony Ive, joined OpenAI to develop a next-generation device that weans consumers off screens. After he announced a deal to sell his startup io to OpenAI for $6.5 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported that a key goal is to deliver an AI-powered device that shifts the current computing paradigm in which humans stare at black rectangles all day. Later, OpenAI told employees it is aiming to make 100 million AI "companion" devices.

It is hard to gauge the potential for a brand-new computing device from a company that has never made one. Yet the fact that it is coming from the man who led design of the iPhone and other hit Apple products means it can't be dismissed. Apple sees the threat coming: "You may not need an iPhone 10 years from now, as crazy as that sounds," an Apple executive, Eddy Cue, testified in a court case this month.

Apple isn't expected to show any AI breakthroughs at its annual developer conference in a couple of weeks. And Cook said on Apple's recent earnings call that a more personalized Siri assistant hasn't arrived yet because what the company has in the shop doesn't yet meet Apple's "high quality bar."

The company might not need to be first in AI. It didn't make the first music player, smartphone or tablet. It waited, and then conquered each market with the best. A question is whether a strategy that has been successful in devices will work for AI.

Apple makes billions in revenue from its services business, carrying gross profit margins north of 70%, compared with less than 40% for hardware. A judge wrote in a recent ruling that Apple ignored her injunction to allow app developers to bypass its steep fees on app store purchases. "Cook chose poorly" in listening to advice to ignore her, she wrote. European Union regulators want Apple to make similar changes abroad, and worldwide regulators could follow suit.

State and federal lawmakers are threatening the app store with legislation to require Apple to verify user ages. While the bottom-line impact of such a move is unclear, it could reduce teen spending or even empower parents to limit teen engagement on smartphones more fully.

Meanwhile, the judge overseeing an antitrust case against Alphabet's Google could demand that the search giant stop paying Apple some $20 billion annually to be the default search engine in Safari, revenue that is basically pure profit for Apple.

Of course, all of these issues pale next to threats to Cook's greatest creation -- Apple's supply chain in China.

Trump's demands notwithstanding, there isn't much Apple can do to move iPhone production, which remains centered in China. While it is shifting final assembly of more iPhones to India, many of the components inside the device still come from across the Himalayas.

The strategy gives Apple some flexibility to arbitrage different tariffs for U.S.-bound devices assembled in the two countries.

Trump wants a made-in-America iPhone. Such a device could cost over $3,000, so he is unlikely to get one.

Cook might try to placate him by shifting production of something else to the U.S., and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent may have given Cook an out on iPhones when he said Friday that the administration wants Apple to make more of its chips here.

Apple already announced plans to facilitate production of AI servers in Texas, but Trump clearly expects more. With frequent calls to the White House and a meeting there in the past week, Cook, it seems, is negotiating his next peace offering.