{"id":210707,"date":"2025-12-30T03:26:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T03:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/210707\/"},"modified":"2025-12-30T03:26:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-30T03:26:08","slug":"indias-billionaires-struggle-to-woo-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/210707\/","title":{"rendered":"India\u2019s billionaires struggle to woo Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"

India\u2019s billionaires had big hopes for the Trump presidency but nearly one year since his second term began, two of the biggest are paying the price for the worst relationship between New Delhi and Washington in decades.<\/p>\n

US President Donald Trump, angry with President Vladimir Putin for refusing to stop his war in Ukraine, directed that ire to India\u2019s Russian oil imports, and doubled the tariff on Indian goods to 50 per cent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It meant a direct hit for the business empire of India\u2019s richest man, Mukesh Ambani. The refining arm of Ambani\u2019s Reliance Industries conglomerate had earned a windfall of nearly $6bn since<\/a> 2022 by refining discounted crude from Russia and selling it to the west.<\/p>\n

The country\u2019s second-richest man, Gautam Adani, had hoped that a case accusing him of orchestrating a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme could be resolved quickly under the Trump administration. The Financial Times had previously reported<\/a> on the \u201cbig relief\u201d within the conglomerate when Trump ordered a halt to enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, heightening expectations that the cases against Adani would eventually collapse.<\/p>\n

But so far nothing has changed for the chair of his eponymous infrastructure conglomerate and ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.<\/p>\n

\"EntryThe Reliance Industries conglomerate is owned by Mukesh Ambani \u00a9 Dhiraj Singh\/Bloomberg<\/p>\n

The billionaires had expected that Trump would be Modi\u2019s \u201cbuddy\u201d as the two shared a warm relationship, said\u00a0Bhaskar Chakravorti, dean of global business at The Fletcher School at Tufts University.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the start of his administration, Trump had even put some Indians in prominent positions\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009businesses in the US with Indian-Americans at the head were getting cosy with Trump. In other words, the ground had been laid for a beautiful relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n

But on top of the tariffs, \u201cModi and Trump have barely spoken, and to add insult to injury Trump\u2019s new friend is Pakistan\u201d. Add to that the fact that Trump is attacking the visas used by many highly qualified Indians to enter the US, \u201cit is hard to imagine a worse scenario for a perfect let-down storm\u201d, Chakravorti said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There was an initial calculation that the business links could benefit the bilateral ties, said Bill Drexel, an India expert at the Hudson Institute, a think-tank with close ties to the Republican party, but the \u201cexact opposite has happened\u201d because those \u201cbusiness ties were not enough to keep the relationship from going off the rails\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we can say that is true of this administration is that I think there\u2019s insufficient focus on India, certainly at a high level,\u201d said Drexel. <\/p>\n

The rupture in India\u2019s US ties this year symbolises the \u201cdawning of realpolitik for India\u201d, said a Mumbai-based tycoon who is close to Ambani. \u201cWe had an exaggerated idea of how important India was to the US,\u201d the person said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Since Trump took office in January, Ambani<\/a> and Adani have both sought to strengthen ties. <\/p>\n

Ambani has spent $240,000 on lobbying in the US this year, according to Senate disclosures<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Donald Trump Jr has visited Ambani\u2019s refinery in western India and spent time with one of Ambani\u2019s sons, Anant, at their large private zoo. The visit came just a day before Reliance Industries announced it had stopped buying Russian crude to comply with the US sanctions.\u00a0Trump\u2019s son Eric has said he is working on \u201cseveral\u201d hotels in India and a company connected to Ambani paid a $10mn \u201cdevelopment fee\u201d to the Trump Organization. <\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s daughter Ivanka attended Anant Ambani\u2019s wedding celebration last year and the Ambanis still wanted to extend their influence in the US, the tycoon close to Ambani said, adding that Trump \u201cstill likes Mukesh as a friend\u201d. Reliance did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

\"GautamGautam Adani had hoped that a case accusing him of orchestrating a bribery scheme could be resolved quickly under the Trump administration \u00a9 Sumit Dayal\/\/Bloomberg<\/p>\n

Adani has spent at least $150,000 this year on lobbying and legal expenses in the US, according to US Senate lobbying disclosures.<\/p>\n

In mid-October, Adani had dinner with a small delegation from the Hudson Institute at his home in Ahmedabad, according to two people aware of the event. The delegation had met Modi in New Delhi earlier.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

But little progress has been registered in the public record of court documents lodged with the New York Eastern District Court in the two cases brought separately by the US Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The last filing on the criminal case was in December 2024. The SEC informed the New York Eastern District Court earlier this month that India\u2019s government had not yet served a summons to Adani and his nephew Sagar Adani, who is also charged, despite repeatedly communicating with India\u2019s Ministry of Law and Justice. Both deny all charges. <\/p>\n

The case lingers, according to a person aware of the company\u2019s dealings in the US. \u201cTrump doesn\u2019t even know who we are,\u201d the person said. <\/p>\n

Adani\u2019s lobbying efforts have not paid off, Chakravorti said, because \u201cAdani has approached Trump only through lobbyists and lawyers but the two have no personal connection. So it is easy for Trump to ignore Adani and his problems with US laws.\u201d <\/p>\n

Recommended<\/p>\n

\"Montage<\/a><\/p>\n

Adani is looking to invest in US businesses, a person aware of the company\u2019s thinking said, partly in the hope that it would help it secure Trump\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n

Without addressing the charges in the US, an Adani Group spokesperson told the FT that there was no impact on its businesses or plans from any issues in the US.<\/p>\n

The spokesperson said the group had \u201cno major operations in the US other than sales of solar modules, which contribute under 2 per cent to our overall profits\u201d, adding that \u201cwe continue to evaluate opportunities outside India \u2014 including in the US \u2014 and remain committed to creating value wherever possible\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The White House did not respond to a request for comment on Trump\u2019s relationship with Ambani or Adani. <\/p>\n

Tensions could ease, the Mumbai-based tycoon noted, if the US finalised a trade deal to reduce tariffs on Indian goods. But whatever the outcome, the person noted, corporate India \u201cwon\u2019t go back to the naive expectation that we had Trump locked down \u2014 that was la la land\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"India\u2019s billionaires had big hopes for the Trump presidency but nearly one year since his second term began,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":210708,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-210707","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}