Apple device manufacturer Foxconn Technology Group is considering an expansion of its U.S. operations, weighing the move as President-elect Donald Trump calls on the iPhone maker itself to shift manufacturing to American soil.

Foxconn on Tuesday night issued a statement saying it is "in preliminary discussions regarding a potential investment that would represent an expansion of our current U.S. operations."

The company, headquartered in Taiwan and known formally as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., said it would need to speak with "relevant U.S. officials," and that no final decision had been reached.

But the announcement comes as the president-elect is pressuring U.S. companies to move operations and retain workforces domestically. The Trump team last week unveiled a negotiated deal involving Indiana-based Carrier that effectively scuttled the relocation of hundreds of jobs from the U.S. to Mexico.

Comments the president-elect has made following that announcement indicate he's interested in pursuing similar single-company deals going forward, though he has yet to iron out a deal with Apple.

"They say it's not presidential to call up these massive leaders of business. But I think it's very presidential. And if it's not presidential, that's OK," Trump said last week during a speech in Indianapolis. "It's OK. Because I like doing it."

Trump's history with Apple is checkered. Although he at one time held shares of the company's stock, he also temporarily called for a boycott of its products after it declined to help the FBI unlock a smartphone belonging to one of the suspects in last year's mass shooting in San Bernardino, California.

Boycott all Apple products until such time as Apple gives cellphone info to authorities regarding radical Islamic terrorist couple from Cal — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 19, 2016

During a campaign rally in March, Trump said he'd "get Apple to start making their computers and their iPhones on our land, not in China," where iPhones currently are assembled.

He also told The New York Times last month that he'd spoken with Apple CEO Tim Cook following his presidential victory.

"I said, 'Tim, you know one of the things that will be a real achievement for me is when I get Apple to build a big plant in the United States, or many big plants in the United States,'" Trump told the Times. "I said, 'I think we'll create the incentives for you, and I think you're going to do it.'"

Trump has vowed to lower American companies' corporate tax burdens and peel back existing regulatory layers, potentially opening the door to increased company profits.

During his campaign for the White House, he also showed a willingness to send tariffs on Chinese imports climbing as high as 45 percent, which would be costly for a company like Apple.

But the iPhone maker has not delivered any public statement on whether it will reshuffle its global supply chain to put factories in the U.S. The Nikkei Asian Review, in a story citing anonymous sources, last month reported that Apple in June asked Foxconn and Pegatron – another iPhone assembler – to study moving iPhone production to the U.S. But Nikkei's sources indicated both companies had cost-related concerns about such a move.

Prior to Foxconn's announcement, its name appeared on what appeared to be a PowerPoint-type printoff captured in a photo featuring Trump and Japanese billionaire Masayoshi Son, founder and CEO of tech and telecom outfit SoftBank, in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York City. Son met with Trump on Tuesday, and pledged to invest $50 billion in new startups in the U.S.

Masa (SoftBank) of Japan has agreed to invest $50 billion in the U.S. toward businesses and 50,000 new jobs.... — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 6, 2016

Though Trump tweeted that SoftBank "would never do this had we (Trump) not won the election," Japanese media reported the investment was part of a funding endeavor announced back in October, before the election took place.

It was not immediately clear why Foxconn's name appeared on the sheet of paper or what the company's connection to the investment would be. Scrawled in print at the bottom appeared to be a signature, the date and the acronym "MAGA," for "Make America Great Again."

