US President Trump threatens Apple with 25 percent punitive tariffs

US President Donald Trump is publicly threatening Apple with a 25% tariff on iPhones. He announced this on Friday if the company does not relocate its entire US iPhone production from India to the USA. Apple would have to pay these duties to the state when importing the devices into the USA.

With Trump's announcement in the communication service “Truth Social”, his demands on Apple boss Tim Cook have become even more acute. A few weeks ago, Apple announced that the company would have the majority of its iPhones sold on the US market manufactured in India in the future. According to market reports, this involves 60 million devices per year. This is Apple's way of escaping the escalating trade dispute between the US and China, in the course of which Trump at times held out the prospect of very high punitive tariffs in the first half of the year.

Apple under pressure

Trump, on the other hand, thinks that Apple should also have the devices it sells in the US built domestically. According to industry experts, this is unrealistic, as neither the necessary factories nor the required number of staff can be provided in the short term. The cost situation would also mean that Apple would either have to massively forgo profits or significantly increase its prices.

In addition to Cook's announcement to relocate device production for the USA to India, it has also been revealed that Apple's contract manufacturer Foxconn is currently investing 1.5 billion US dollars in the expansion of Indian production. This includes a plant for the production of display modules in Chennai. At the beginning of the year, however, Apple also announced plans to invest 500 billion US dollars in the USA.

(mki)