President Donald Trump revealed he had a “little problem” with Apple CEO Tim Cook, recounting a phone call he made about the tech giant’s plans to build in India.
During his multi-stop tour of the Middle East, the president told reporters Thursday about his call with Cook and his urging to bring jobs back to the U.S. rather than investing operations in India.
Apple had moved to get ahead of the tariff battle with China by shifting production of iPhones for the American market to India. Apple “sells over 60 million iPhones in the U.S. annually, with roughly 80% of them made in China currently,” Reuters reported last month.
“I had a little problem with Tim Cook yesterday,” Trump recounted during a news conference while in Qatar. “I said to him: ‘Tim, you’re my friend. I treated you very good. You’re coming in 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, it’s very hard to sell into India. And they’ve offered us a deal where basically they’re willing to literally charge us no tariff. So we go from the highest tariff… You couldn’t do business in India. We’re not even a top 30 in India because the tariff is so high to a point where they have actually told us, I assume you to Scott [Bessent], you were working on that also that there will be no tariff, right? Would you say that’s a difference there, the highest and now they’re saying no tariff,” the president continued, referring to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
“But I said to Tim, I said: ‘Tim, look, 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 you building in India. India can take care of themselves. They’re doing very well. We want you to build here,” Trump recounted.
Trump then indicated that Apple will be increasing U.S. production.
“And they’re going to be upping their production in the United States, Apple. So Apple is already in for 500 billion, but they’re going to be upping their production. So it will be great,” he said.
