Donald Trump said he had a “little problem” with Apple boss Tim Cook, following reports the tech company was going to shift iPhone production from China to India.
Trump said he confronted Apple’s chief exuecitve about the shift in production, with the American company’s planning to make most of its U.S.-destined iPhones in India by the end of next year. Those plans have been accelerated by the president’s higher tariffs on China.
Trump told a business summit in Qatar on Thursday that he had admonished Cook over the company’s India expansion plans.
“Tim, we treated you very good, we put up with all the plants you built in China for years … 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”, Trump recalled himself telling Cook, who was not in the Doha meeting.
Trump acknowledged Apple’s promise to spend $500 billion on production in the U.S., but said he didn’t want to see more production in India.
“I said to him: ‘Tim, you’re my friend. You’re coming here with 500 billion but now you’re building all over India. I don’t want you building in India’’,” Trump said, the Guardian reports.
The president also said that India had offered a “basically zero tariff” deal with the U.S. to avoid Trump’s so-called “reciprocal” tariffs.
“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.
At the start of April the president announced high “reciprocal” tariffs on dozens of countries, including India.
During that announcement, Trump said India would face a “discounted” 26 percent tariff rate, and accused India of having “very very high tariffs” with an average duty on American goods of 52 percent.
India has some of the world’s highest tariffs on imports, and Trump has previously called India a “tariff abuser”.
Trump’s latest comments on a potential deal have been backed up by Reuters, which reported that New Delhi has offered to reduce duties to zero on 60 percent of tariff lines in a first phase of the deal under negotiation with Washington, while offering preferential access to nearly 90 percent of the merchandise India imports from the U.S.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has in recent years promoted India as a smartphone manufacturing hub and Apple’s suppliers have ramped up production in the country.
In March, Apple’s main India suppliers Foxconn and Tata shipped nearly $2 billion worth of iPhones to the U.S., an all-time high, to bypass Trump’s impending tariffs.
