WASHINGTON DC: US President Donald Trump reiterated his stance of pushing manufacturers to produce devices in the United States.
He made the remarks on Friday (US local time), while signing several key executive orders, including one on ushering in nuclear energy.
While speaking to the media about the issue of having iPhones manufactured in the US, Trump said, “It would be more, it would also be Samsung and anybody that makes that product, otherwise it wouldn’t be fair. So anybody that makes that product”.
He said that if the plants are based in the US, there would be no tariffs. “When they build their plant here, there’s no tariff. So they’re building plants here but I had an understanding with him (Tim Cook) that he wouldn’t be doing this. He said he’s going to India to build plants. I said, that’s okay to go to India, but you’re not going to sell into here without tariffs. And that’s the way it is.”
Trump said as most of the work is computerised, he had faith that the prices wouldn’t shoot up for the American consumers.
He said, “A lot of it’s so computerized now. These plants are amazing if you look at them, but they can do that. Apple’s coming in with 500 billion dollars. So are the chip companies coming in. The biggest 500 billion, 200 billion, 250 billion dollars they’re spending. But we’re talking about the iPhone now. And you know, the iPhone, if they’re to sell it in America, I want it to be built in the United States. They’re able to do that.”
Earlier on Friday, Trump said that Apple will have to pay a 25 per cent import tariffs if its mobile handsets sold in US are not produced in the boundaries of the country.
(ANI)
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