Wednesday 07 December 2016 1:17 pm

A major Apple supplier has US investment plans hot on the heels of SoftBank

Foxconn, a major supplier of parts for Apple's iPhones, is following the lead of Softbank and is considering plans to invest in the US.

President-elect Donald Trump tweeted that SoftBank, the Japanese company which snapped up UK tech firm Arm in a £24bn deal over the summer, will plough $50bn into the country and create 50,000 new jobs.

Now Foxconn has followed suit, but said it has not yet decided on the size and scope of its investment.

Both promises come after Trump warned that US companies outsourcing production abroad face a 35 per cent tax rate and amid concerns over trade deals under the businessman-turned-politician.

China has previously warned Trump that it would take a "tit-for-tat approach" if he were to introduce trade measures that "made things difficult" for the country and specifically referring to iPhone production in the country.

Trump also indicated a reactionary stance to business affairs, launching an unprecedented attack on Boeing directly on Twitter. He said he would call of a multimillion dollar contract with the aerospace firm to build the next Air Force One because costs had spiralled out of control.

But while Softbank and Foxconn appear to be keen to get the President-elect on side, the $50bn from Softbank is not in fact a new pot of cash.

The investment will come from a previously announced tech investment fund. The SoftBank Vision Fund will raise as much as $100bn with input coming from the Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund to put into the technology sector.

It's one of the largest tech investment funds ever created and will be based in London, with the UK's tech leaders welcoming it as a stamp of approval for the capital after Brexit .

Shares in SoftBank rocketed more than six per cent on the announcement, while shares of Hon Hai, as Foxconn is officially known, were less than one per cent higher.