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President Donald Trump said he’s asked Apple Inc.’s Tim Cook to stop building plants in India to make devices for the US, pushing the iPhone maker to add domestic production as it pivots away from China.
“I had a little problem with Tim Cook yesterday,” Trump said of his conversation with Apple’s chief executive officer in Qatar, where he’s on a state visit. “He is building all over India. I don’t want you building in India.” As a result of their discussion, Trump said Apple will be “upping their production in the United States.”
Apple representatives in India did not respond to a request for comment.
Trump’s comments threaten to throw a wrench into Apple’s plan to import most of the iPhones it sells in the US from India by the end of next year, accelerating a shift beyond China to mitigate risks related to tariffs and geopolitical tensions. Apple makes most of its iPhones in China and has no smartphone production in the US — though it’s promised to hire more workers at home and pledged to spend $500 billion domestically over the next four years.
Building iPhones from scratch in the US will be extremely difficult even for cash-rich Apple. The supply chain for iPhones and skilled labor for such a precisely engineered product has been concentrated in China for years, and Apple’s only just started forging local partnerships in India. Expensive American labor and manufacturing also makes iPhone production in the US untenable. India, on the other hand, is one of Apple’s fastest-growing markets with a vast customer base that aspires to buy its iconic products. The country also has state subsidies to help it expand assembly.
“This is a familiar Trump tactic: He wants to push Apple to localize more and build a supply chain in the US, which is not going to happen overnight,” said Tarun Pathak, research director at tech analytics firm Counterpoint. “Making in the US will also be much more expensive than assembling iPhones in India.”
Apple and its suppliers have accelerated a shift away from the world’s No. 2 economy, a process that began when harsh Covid lockdowns hurt production at its largest plant. Tariffs introduced by Trump as well as Beijing-Washington tensions prompted Apple to amplify that effort.