Doha: United States President Donald Trump, who is currently touring the Middle East, said he asked Apple CEO Tim Cook to “stop building in India” and that “India can take care of themselves.”
At a business meet in Doha on Thursday, May 15, President Trump said he had a “little problem” with the Apple CEO.
“I said to him, my friend, I am treating you very good. You are coming up with $500 billion, but now I hear you are building all over India. I don’t want you building in India. You can build in India, if you want to take care of India because India is one of the highest tariff nations in the world, so it is very hard to sell in India,” he said.
Apple currently has three manufacturing contractors in India – two in Chennai and one in Karnataka. Recently, Cook announced he plans to expand and gradually shift its base from China to India.
In the last fiscal ending March, Apple had assembled iPhones worth USD 22 billion in India, a 60 percent increase in production as compared to the previous financial year.
India offered to drop tariffs to zero on US goods, claims Trump
Trump has suggested that India has offered to drop tariffs on US goods to zero, something not immediately acknowledged by New Delhi.
“It’s very hard to sell into India and and they’ve offered us a deal with what basically they’re willing to literally charge us no tariff,” Trump said.
India is a close partner of the US and is part of the Quad, which is made up of the US, India, Japan and Australia, and is seen as a counterbalance to China’s expansion in the region.
(With inputs from PTI)
Updated Note: Apple does not directly own or operate manufacturing plants in India. Instead, Apple relies on its contract manufacturing partners – primarily Foxconn, Pegatron, and Wistron to assemble iPhones and other products in India. These companies own and run the factories, while Apple oversees quality and production standards.
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