Because historically, when one country creates tariffs to gain advantages for itself, the other surrounding countries create tit-for-tat tariffs right back at them, and then trade slows down overall among the various countries involved. (I.e., if the USA ratchets up tariffs on something like hypothetical Indian-produced automatic-back scratchers, India responds by raising tariffs on American-produced automatic-back scratchers to make it hard for us to sell them over there. Both India and America in that instance end up selling fewer units to each other.
What's insidious is that if a particular product tariff isn't enough to be painful (say because the USA doesn't buy many automatic back-scratchers to begin with), India will also throw on some additional tariffs on other products we do buy (say, peanuts) and use that to make some economic pain--with the goal being not just of punishing sales in one industry, but creating enough widespread economic woe to slow the larger economy down in that country.
That last time America tried using tariffs to benefit itself in any significant way was with the Tariff Act of 1930. (aka Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act). Once we starting slapping tariffs on foreign goods, our trade competitors did the same on American goods, and it eventually escalated into tariffs on over 20,000 different products over 5-6 years. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoot–Hawley_Tariff_Act).
Those tariffs didn't cause the Great Depression--other factors did that!--but they certainly worsened and deepened it. The industries that were using protectionist tariffs suffered counter-intuitively in spite of their protections, as did unrelated industries.
Historically, the other time America tried using tariffs for economic advantage in a specific industry was the Tariff Act of 1828, aka the one later called "The Tariff of Abominations" for the self-inflicted economic damage to the USA. The northern US states relied on manufacturing for their economy, but they were being undercut by cheaper and more efficiently manufactured European goods. So, as a protectionist measure to preserve US manufacturing jobs, congress created big tariffs against imported European products. European countries, of course retaliated by raising 38% tariffs on imported US goods, and as a kicker to make it sting, a 45% tariff on tobacco and cotton from the US. The latter two weren't aimed at US manufacturing, but at other industries like agriculture in southern states.
These tariff-wars historically spread out to more than one area, and they ultimately lead to diminished purchases and sales in both countries. So, it's not that US tariffs will hurt Apple's global sales directly. It's that the US tariffs will trigger counter-tariffs, depress multiple economic areas besides just electronics sales. Then, US Apple customers will have diminished buying power because of economic slumps here, while at the same time Apple will have fewer sales abroad.
In American history, I'm always puzzled by how we do the tariff-war thing, suffer disastrous results, say, "Wow--that was awful! Let's not do it again!. Then, like clockwork, about 90 years later, we try to do the tariff-war thing another time. It's like people don't pay attention to any history from more than 70 years ago.
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