“If Mr. Trump wants Mr. Cook to assemble iPhones in the U.S., the Apple CEO should deliver,” the founder of the Global Trade Research Institute said. File
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U.S. President Donald Trump threatened Apple, Inc. with 25% tariffs on iPhone imports if the company didn’t make them domestically. Repeating his insistence that he didn’t want iPhones to be assembled in India, Mr. Trump said in a post on Truth Social that “I have long informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their iPhone’s [sic] that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else,” adding that if that doesn’t happen, “a Tariff of at least 25% must be paid by Apple to the U.S.”
This is not the first time Mr. Trump has lashed out at Apple’s phone assembly operations in India, largely contract manufacturers with facilities in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. “We’re not interested in you building in India,” Mr. Trump said he told Apple CEO Tim Cook. “They can take care of themselves,” he said, adding that he expected the company to start assembling iPhones in the U.S. instead.
Apple and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
When Mr. Trump first remarked on Apple’s manufacturing in India, a senior official told The Hindu that the government was not too “concerned” that the U.S. president’s words would have any impact on existing manufacturing commitments the company has made in Tamil Nadu and elsewhere.
Ajay Srivastava, founder of the Global Trade Research Institute and a former Additional Director General Foreign Trade, offered an unconventional take on the matter. He said, “If Mr. Trump wants Mr. Cook to assemble iPhones in the U.S., the Apple CEO should deliver.”
“Shifting iPhone assembly from India to the U.S. could unlock over 60,000 new jobs, immediately rising to 300,000 if production also moves out of China,” Mr. Srivastava wrote earlier this month. “These are not high-tech desk jobs, but hands-on factory roles that once built America’s middle class. It’s a rare opportunity to turn elite tech into broad-based employment — and breathe life back into U.S. industrial strength,” he said.
“It will also nudge India to focus on deep manufacturing and not be happy with superficial assembly jobs,” he added
Published – May 23, 2025 06:12 pm IST
