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Because there is an Apple-owned company in Ireland. And that company makes profits from operations that would be much harder (may be impossible) to setup as a US-based company.

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Eh, no, not quite, Apple has set up several companies in Ireland. They do some assembly and some customer support, and some sales and administration. Generally, a multinational has to set up a company domiciled in any country that they have direct employees, because governments don't really like when you have employees without a company, because there's no such thing. These companies don't really have a PnL in the same way as the parent company, even though they will have filed statutory accounts in the country of domicile, the fact is that they don't originate the product they are selling. The services they provide could be outsourced to a third party; for example, a US company could design and manufacture a product, and just use Amazon to manage fulfillment globally. Manufacturing of electronic goods is often outsourced as well, so that's not a counter-argument. The EU has correctly pointed out that Apple's arrangement in which the "head office" of Apple Sales International is not actually the US parent company, and it looks like it should be.

>the fact is that they don't originate the product they are selling

They are billing locally. They have local accounts in which local payments are made.

so no, they have local revenue. Value is created there.

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