• Films Dee
  • Posts
  • Apple’s iPhone Airlift from India Sparks Trafficking Memes

Apple’s iPhone Airlift from India Sparks Trafficking Memes

As Trump’s new tariffs loom, Apple flies five cargo planes full of iPhones into the U.S.—and the internet can’t stop calling it “electronic smuggling.”

Author

Films Dee
April 15, 2025

In a move straight out of a tech-thriller playbook, Apple reportedly shipped five entire cargo planes loaded with iPhones from its Indian manufacturing hubs to the U.S. just before Trump’s fresh tariff wave hit. With China now facing a crushing 54% tariff—and retaliating in kind—Apple is dodging financial fallout by rerouting its iPhone pipeline via India, which currently faces a slightly “friendlier” 26% rate. The goal? Get those devices stateside before Liberation Day duties make your next iPhone even more unaffordable.

Online, the response has been less CNBC, more Narcos. Memes comparing Apple to Pablo Escobar took over X (formerly Twitter), with users calling it “iPhone trafficking” and mocking the trillion-dollar brand’s “college dealer-level” tax strategy. As one user put it, “This is the future—I’d never smuggle drugs, but I might traffic iPhones.” Others even crunched the numbers, estimating up to $2 billion worth of iPhones were quietly flown in under the radar, all in the name of staying one step ahead of Trump’s tariff hammer.
Source