US President Donald Trump has publicly rebuked Apple CEO Tim Cook, over a manufacturing change made at the tech giant, amid Trump’s tariff chaos and trade war with China.
The Guardian reported on the comments made by Trump, speaking in Qatar on Thursday, in which he admonished Apple and its chief executive, over the tech firm’s reported plans to source production of US-bound iPhones from India.
It comes after it was reported that Apple is considering price increases for its autumn iPhone range, but is determined to avoid any appearance of relating the increases to US tariffs on Chinese imports, instead potentially attributing them to new features and design changes.
Tariff chaos
In April amid the economic chaos unleashed by Donald Trump and his so called “Liberation Day” “reciprocal” tariffs, Apple was forced to reconsider where it sourced its iPhones for the US, as the US and China hit each with a series of escalating tariffs.
In response to the levies Tim Cook reportedly shifted production of iPhones destined for the US market to India, saying earlier this month that the majority of iPhones shipped to the US in the April to June quarter would be produced in India.
Apple had also chartered cargo flights to ferry 600 tons of iPhones, or as many as 1.5 million devices, to the United States from India in an effort to circumvent the worst of Trump’s tariffs.
Cook has also previously said that Apple expects Trump’s tariff policies to lead to $900 million (£683m) in additional costs this quarter, with costs continuing to rise.
That was before a move earlier this week, when the US and China agreed to suspend the punitive tariffs for 90 days.
Trump’s rebuke
Meanwhile Trump on Thursday opted to publicly rebuke Tim Cook.
Trump said he had a “little problem” with Apple’s Tim Cook, over the reports that Apple is planning to switch assembly of handsets for the US market from China to India.
“I had a little problem with Tim Cook yesterday,” said Trump, speaking in Qatar on Thursday.
Referring to Apple’s recent promise to spend $500bn (£375bn) in the US, he added: “I said to him: ‘Tim, you’re my friend. You’re coming here with 500bn but now you’re building all over India. I don’t want you building in India.’”
“I said to Tim … we’ve treated you really good, we’ve put up with all the plants that you’ve built in China for years, now you got to build [for] us,” Trump was quoted by the Guardian as saying. “We’re not interested in you building in India, India can take care of themselves … we want you to build here.”
Trump then said Apple was “going to be upping their production in the United States”, although he did not provide further details to back up the claim.
It should be noted that no iPhones are currently made in the US and experts have warned that moving assembly of Apple’s top-selling product to the US would be impractical and costly. The US financial firm Wedbush Securities has estimated that the cost of an iPhone would treble if assembly were to be shifted to the US.
Amazon rebuke
Apple is not the only tech giant to have been rebuked by Trump recently.
The White House recently accused Amazon of engaging in a hostile political act, after its low-cost Haul unit was reported to be considering listing extra fees due to US tariffs.
A similar policy had already been implemented by some other e-commerce sites such as Alibaba’s AliExpress.
Last month Amazon CEO Andy Jassy had warned that Amazon was still waiting to see how Trump’s tariffs “play out,” but that its network third-party sellers may “pass that cost on” to consumers.