Taking a tough stand on trade issues, US President Donald Trump has asked Apple CEO Tim Cook not to manufacture I-Phones in India.
“Tim you’re my friend, I have treated you very good, 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. We are not interested in you building in India. India can take care of themselves,” Trump said after a meeting with US-Qatar business leaders.
The statement comes days after India rebuffed the US President’s offer of mediation on Kashmir between India and Pakistan in the midst of Operation Sindoor. Significantly the advice to Tim Cook also comes after US and China agreed on reduction of tariffs.
President Trump attributed the decision to tariffs imposed by India on US goods and said India is one of the highest tariff nations in the world.
Mr Cook had earlier said Apple would produce most of the iPhones for US market in India and would shift part of iPhone production from China to India in the next few years because of high tariff imposed by China. Apple planned to source from India about 60mn iPhones sold annually in the US by the end of next year.
However, the US President also announced that India had offered to drop all tariffs on goods imported from US. ‘’India has offered us a deal where basically they are willing to literally charge us no tariff”.
