The theatre surrounding Apple’s manufacturing tussle between India and China got another twist this past week, courtesy of US President Donald Trump.

Trump’s recent pronouncements, essentially telling Tim Cook to ditch India as a manufacturing hub — “India can take care of themselves,” he is said to have quipped — sounded like his characteristic bluster to many.

Timed amid a 90-day US-China trade “truce” and ongoing US-India trade negotiations, Trump’s statements paint a complex picture. While Apple has stated that nothing changes as far as its India manufacturing plans are concerned, Trump is not likely to like this answer.

The billion-dollar question: Is Trump genuinely pushing for an “Apple: Made in America” renaissance, or is India merely a pawn in his larger geopolitical game, potentially being nudged out as Apple is implicitly steered back towards China, at least for the interim.

Let’s unpack this. But after a look at the top stories from our newsroom this week:

• CleverTap’s Deep AI Roots: CleverTap started exploring the AI opportunity more than a decade back to sync consumer preferences with messaging and offers from brands, so does this give the company a leg-up in the GenAI race as SaaS platforms look to transform?
• ElasticRun’s Pivot: Major B2B ecommerce players have been forced to do a business reset amid slowed investments, blitzscaling and deployment of asset-heavy models, but ElasticRun is banking on a pivot to quick commerce supply chain to stand out
• Inside The Akashteer System: While tensions keep simmering between India and Pakistan, what stood out in the latest conflict was the use of hi-tech and indigenously-developed systems by India part of the Akashteer air defence system

Can India Withstand An Apple Exit?

For years, Apple’s diversification strategy – the much talked about “China 1” – saw India emerge as a shining beacon. Apple iPhones worth $22 Bn were assembled in India in FY25, a staggering 60% YoY jump, with $17.4 Bn exported.

Bernstein even projected India could account for 15-20% of total iPhone production by the end of 2025. This isn’t small by any metric; it’s a testament to India’s growing assembly prowess and Apple’s strategic de-risking.

In fact, Apple even got many of its contract manufacturers to India in the hope of recreating the full stack in India.

But Trump’s........

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