A container clears the last leg of an intercontinental shipment and stops at a Western customs barrier. The Tier-1 Indian supplier met every delivery timeline and quality threshold. The problem sits one level below: a sub-tier vendor in a geopolitically restricted region supplied a critical chemical compound, because hitting the buyer’s aggressive target price required it. The buyer’s “Compliance with Laws” clause names the Indian supplier as liable. US Customs and Border Protection names the importer of record. Those are not the same party.
This risk is already playing out in real supply chains. As Apple prepares for a leadership transition from Tim Cook to John Ternus, India has shifted from being just a fast-growing market to becoming a critical manufacturing base in the global supply chain. iPhone production alone accounted for $23 billion of India’s $47 billion electronics exports by 2025. Apple is not the only company facing this situation. This is now the reality of
