Many iPhones are assembled in China, but iPhones are assembled in countries other than China as well. Apple can continue to ship iPhones from India (and elsewhere ex-China) to warehouses in America at the 10% tariffs rate during the 90-day pause. America can get the India (and elsewhere ex-China) assembled iPhones, while the China assembled iPhones can go to the rest of the world.
India won't let it work like that. The phones assembled in India are for the Indian market. Indian laws (PLI, BIS, CRS) financially punish companies who import phones instead of making them in India. So Apple would run headlong into Indian tariffs while trying to avoid Chinese tariffs.
Really?
Apple airlifts 600 tons of iPhones from India 'to beat' Trump tariffs, sources say
NEW DELHI, April 10 (Reuters) - Tech giant Apple chartered cargo flights to ferry 600 tons of iPhones, or as many as 1.5 million, to the United States from India, after it stepped up production there in an effort to beat President Donald Trump's tariffs, sources told Reuters.
The details of the push provide an insight into the U.S. smartphone company's private strategy to navigate around the Trump tariffs and build up inventory of its popular iPhones in the United States, one of its biggest markets.
Apple may have had to pay India some additional fees but India allowed it. Maybe India also realizes what a dangerous bully-child Trump is. His art of the deal is paying less if anything at all than he previously agreed on. Contracts and legal obligation mean nothing to him. He learned this from dear old dad and had practiced it ever since. And MAGAs OK that. Until it's them in his crosshairs.
Context is everything. This sounds like a big number, but... India manufactures about 14% of all iPhones. It is estimated that it could ramp up production an additional 20%, which means it could manufacture roughly 17% of all iPhones. Not even remotely close to what's shipped to the U.S. from China. Estimates are that 50 million iPhones are sold in the U.S. annually--so let's call it roughly a million a week. So what India just shipped is roughly a week and a half supply, on average. I have no data on the following, but to be fair, I would imagine that iPhone sales in the last 5 months of a new model's year aren't as strong as the first five months, so 1.5 million phones might last longer than the average this time of year. But without an exemption, Apple is still looking down the barrel of a gun, especially when it comes to ramping up for the iPhone 17.
In a press gaggle, President Donald Trump said that some companies that have been hit the hardest by the blockbuster tariffs applied by the administration may get some relief -- and nobody has been or will be hit harder than Apple.
A reporter asks him about potential exemptions while he's out doing a meet-and-greet with race car drivers. Trump states that exemptions are being considered for companies "hit harder" by tariffs, but decisions will be made based on "instinct."
Exemptions could be based on where the company pays taxes. There's nothing to gain by harming US businesses but tariffs can be applied to companies like Temu, Tencent, Samsung, Huawei that profit from US consumers but use their revenue to invest in their own country. Apple invests their revenue in the US already. Then tariffs would work to the benefit of US companies rather than against them.
Trump may be volatile but he is not stupid and loves to negotiate hard (Art of the Deal). He also loves Apple so he will not allow them to be harmed in the long run.
The Art of the Deal. You’re hilarious. Tony Schwartz Is the ghostwriter who actually wrote that book and he regrets doing it. He found Trump to be incurious, not bright, and entirely lacking the attention span necessary to actually be good at negotiating deals.
Comments
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/07/25/donald-trumps-ghostwriter-tells-all
Also... have pee tapes.