Make iPhones in US, not India, or face 25 pc tariff: Trump threatens Apple

US President Donald Trump on Friday said he expects Apple iPhones that will be sold in the US to be manufactured in America and “not India, or anyplace else”, and threatened to impose a 25 per cent tariff on the tech giant's products if it does not comply.

Just last week, during his visit to West Asia (the Middle East for the Western world), Trump had said in Doha that he doesn't want Apple to manufacture its products in India.

"I have long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their iPhones that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else. If that is not the case, a Tariff of at least 25% must be paid by Apple to the U.S. Thank your (sic) for your attention to this matter!” Trump said in a social media post.

Earlier this month, Apple CEO Cook said in a Q2 2025 Earnings Conference call that the existing tariffs that apply to Apple today are based on the product's country of origin.

"For the June quarter, we do expect the majority of iPhones sold in the US will have India as their country of origin and Vietnam to be the country of origin for almost all iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and AirPods products sold in the US,” he had said.

Cook also said China would continue to be the country of origin for the vast majority of total product sales outside the US.

Last week in Doha, Trump said, “I had a little problem with Tim Cook... I said to him, ‘My friend, I treated you very good. You’re coming here with $500 billion, but now I hear you’re 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, because India is the highest, one of the highest tariff nations in the world."

The US President further said that he told Cook, "... we've treated you really good. We put up with all the plants that you built in China for years. Now, you got to build us. We're not interested in your building in India. India can take care of themselves. They're doing very well. We want you to build here, and they're going to be upping their production in the United States. So Apple is already in for 500 billion, but they're going to be upping their production, so it'll be great."

Meanwhile, on Trump's calling for Apple to shift iPhone production from India to the US, the research director for research firm Counterpoint Research, Tarun Pathak, said last week that it is a "familiar Trump tactic".

"He wants to push Apple to localise more and build a supply chain in the US, which is not going to happen overnight. Making in the US will also be much more expensive than assembling iPhones in India,” he said.

Research vice-president Neil Shah had said Apple has been doing a lot of groundwork in India, which has helped it successfully manage some of the US iPhone demand from its India production facilities.

“In terms of capacity, India has enough to potentially meet all US iPhone demand in the future, but the ecosystem needs to be ramped up. We will see more efforts towards this, as well as products beyond iPhones. We expect made-in-India iPhones to account for 25-30 per cent of global iPhone shipments in 2025, as compared to 18 per cent in 2024,” he said.