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Apple supplier Foxconn plans massive Wisconsin factory

The White House touts the plan as a win. Foxconn's history of investment hasn't always panned out.

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The White House announced that Wisconsin has scored a Foxconn plant.

Bob Levey/Getty Images

Foxconn, the Taiwan-based electronics maker that assembles Apple's iPhone and provides parts for other companies' gadgets, is planning to build a factory in Wisconsin, the company announced at the White House on Wednesday.

The $10 billion facility will produce LCD displays and employ as many as 13,000 people, according to officials.

Since the presidential campaign, President Donald Trump has been promising to bring manufacturing to the US as part of his effort to "make America great again." On Tuesday, he said Apple CEO Tim Cook had promised to build three "big, big, big" plants in the States. It's unclear whether the Foxconn facility is part of the Apple plans Trump mentioned.

Foxconn has suggested for some time it would expand in the the US. In 2012, a spokesman for the company told Bloomberg it was "looking at doing more manufacturing in the US because, in general, customers want more to be done there."

Such plans don't always pan out, however. In 2013, Foxconn said it would invest $30 million in a Pennsylvania factory and create 500 jobs. But as noted by The Washington Post and the Associated Press, the facility was never built.

Foxconn didn't respond to a request for comment.