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President Trump is applying pressure on Apple CEO Tim Cook to make iPhones in the US after the company switched production of its US-bound smartphones from China to India to avoid tariffs.
"I had a little problem with Tim Cook yesterday,” Trump said in Qatar on Wednesday, Bloomberg reports. "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.
“We put up with all the plants you built in China for years," he added. "We are not interested in you building in India. India can take care of themselves. They are doing very well. We want you to build here [in the US].”
Apple has long relied on Chinese manufacturers to build the iPhone. Although Trump exempted smartphones from his extra (and now paused) 125% tariff on Chinese imports, the devices still faced another 20% duty. So, Apple moved some production to India, which had lower tariffs.
"For the June quarter, we do expect the majority of iPhones sold in the US will have India as their country of origin," Cook said in an earnings call. Most iPads, Macs, and Apple Watch devices sold in the US will come from Vietnam. “China would continue to be the country of origin for the vast majority of total product sales outside the US,” Cook added.
In February, Apple said it would invest more than $500 billion in the US over the next four years. The money will be used to build a server manufacturing facility in Houston, produce silicon chips in Arizona, establish a manufacturing academy in Detroit, and create 20,000 new jobs. But moving iPhone production to the US is probably an unrealistic and expensive goal.
Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple plans to increase the price of the iPhone 17 series, but executives are reportedly worried about political fallout if the company says the price increases are connected to tariffs. Instead, they might place the blame on the cost of next-gen components.
That fear is not unwarranted. In April, the White House lashed out after Punchbowl News reported that Amazon would note when a price had increased because of tariffs. Amazon then said it had only "considered" including the labels on its Temu-like low-cost offering, Haul.