TRUMP EYES INDIA'S APPLE PIE

The US president's tariff tirade threatens Apple's India strategy, but the tech giant has few manufacturing alternatives beyond China

- By M.G. ARUN / Illustration by NILANJAN DAS

“I don’t want you building all over India.” Those are words that could crush a billion sleekly designed dreams. It’s the Fable of the Forbidden Apple, repurposed for the 21st century. In starker words, US President Donald Trump doesn’t want Apple Inc. to make its iPhones for the US market in India, which he calls “a very high-tariff nation”. The silver lining: experts feel the world’s most valued company has few other options if it has to pack its bags and shift out of its long-time base, China.

This fresh twist of the knife, in the ongoing global trade wars set off by the US, came on May 15 as Trump spoke in Qatar during his Arabian Gulf trip. “I had a little problem with [Apple CEO] Tim Cook yesterday,” he started, loading his off-the-cuffism with a lot of freight, as usual. “I said to him, ‘Tim, you're my friend. You're coming here with $500 billion but now you're building all over India. I don’t want you building in India.’” That $500 billion was an allusion to what Apple committed recently to invest in the US.