US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that hostilities between Pakistan and India were settled, after he urged the two countries to focus on trade instead of war, and asked the tech giant Apple to manufacture its products in the United States instead of India.
"I told India, Pakistan to do trade instead of war, they were happy with that," Trump told US troops at a base in Qatar during second leg of his Middle East tour. "In talks over India-Pakistan dispute, talked about trade," he said.
The nuclear-armed neighbours halted their worst fighting in nearly three decades after agreeing to a ceasefire on Saturday, following diplomacy from the United States. Trump had repeatedly said that he pressed both the countries to go for trade, instead of war.
Also during the visit to Qatar, Trump said that he urged Apple to manufacture its products in the United States instead of India, where the US tech giant has said it would be shifting production after US tariffs on China.
"I had a little problem with Tim Cook," Trump said, referring to Apple's CEO. "I said, Tim, we treated you really good. We put up with all the plants that you built in China for years now. We're not interested in you building in India... we want you to build here and they're going to be upping their production in the United States."
On Monday, the US and China announced an agreement to suspend tit-for-tat tariffs for 90 days, de-escalating a trade war that has spooked financial markets and raised fears of a global economic downturn. Prior to the agreement between Beijing and Washington, Cook said Apple was "not able to precisely estimate the impact of tariffs".
When presenting the tech company's first-quarter profits in early May, Cook said he expected "a majority of iPhones sold in the US will have India as their country of origin".
He warned of the uncertain impact of the 145% US tariffs on products from China — the company's long-time manufacturing hubdespite a temporary reprieve for high-end tech goods such as smartphones and computers.
Although completed smartphones are exempted from Trump's tariffs for now, not all components that go into Apple devices are spared. Apple expects US tariffs to cost $900 million in the current quarter, even though their impact was "limited" at the start of this year, according to Cook.
India, also hit by US tariffs, threatened on Tuesday to take retaliatory measures in response to the increased duties on steel and aluminium. India's Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said on Thursday trade negotiations between India and the US were ongoing, and any agreement should be mutually beneficial.
Apple announced in February it would invest more than $500 billion in the United States over the next four years and promised to hire 20,000 people in the country. "Apple's already in for 500 billion but they're going to be upping their production, so it'll be great," Trump said in Qatar.
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