The importance of Donald Trump Jr’s India trip

The importance of Donald Trump Jr’s India trip

Sunanda K Datta-RayUpdated: Wednesday, May 29, 2019, 11:48 PM IST
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The Trump Organization is involved in more than 24 countries in America, Asia and Europe. It has been claimed authoritatively that it “has more business entities in India than in any other foreign country”.

It would have been unrealistic to expect Donald Trump Jr’s high-profile home-selling tour of India to make any impact on India’s desperate shortage of housing. The need has been assessed at 18 million homes that will cost more than $330 billion to construct. Experts say that as of now the housing sector has a gross bank credit of less than $55 billion. No one acknowledges that promoting buildings is both a risky and not always very reputable business in India.

I don’t know about costs but taking into account the shortage of homes for all classes in town and country throughout India, I would say that 18 million is a modest estimate. We are speaking not of hovels but of homes that provide shelter from heat, cold and wet, and are connected by usable roads. Homes, moreover, must enjoy potable water, sanitation and electricity. Ideally, too, they should be within easy communicating distance of hospitals, schools and employment centres. Any caring government – such as those in places as far apart as the UK and Singapore – would regard the provision of such homes as a priority obligation to the people. If arrangement with an authority or organisation abroad facilitates such service, the arrangement is to be welcomed. That is why P.V. Narasimha Rao, although a lifelong socialist, invited foreign, especially American, capital. He feared           there would be “blood on the streets” if he didn’t provide housing, schools and hospitals for the poor. Since India didn’t have the money to be a welfare state, he reckoned that foreign investment would free scarce domestic resources to provide these services that any civilised country regards as essential.

Indians buying the Trump Organisation’s luxury apartments may not appear directly to help the Indian state or India’s poor. But those who buy flats with a starting price of Rs 3.75 crores for a 2,500 sq ft unit (going up to Rs 6 crores) are among the movers and shakers of the Indian world. Their stake in Indo-US relations can only be beneficial to both sides. India needs oil. India hopes for sophisticated technology. India wants state of the art weapons. India is also looking for a strategic alliance against terrorism. What India should not want are more H-1B visas which reflect poorly on this country’s capacity to cater to its educated young scientists and engineers. What India also does not need is a four-nation military alliance ostensibly to protect the Indo-Pacific region but really to contain China. India must live in a constructive cooperative relationship with the booming neighbour with whom it shares a 3,500-km Himalayan border.

India and the US can also cooperate on the basis of a realistic appraisal of each other’s legitimate needs. Of course, Mr Trump Jr’s tour was not an official programme. Like his younger brother Eric, he is an executive vice-president in the Trump Organisation. He claimed in India that many deals that had been negotiated could not be closed while President Trump is in the White House because that might compromise his presidency. He chose not to try to see Mamata Banerjee or the West Bengal finance minister, Amit Mitra, while visiting Kolkata. Mr Eric Trump claimed in an article in Forbes magazine that there is a “clear separation of church and state that we maintain” between the business and the President. But it stands to reason that a hard-headed billionaire businessman like President Trump will not take an unkindly view of a country that encourages the hotels, golf courses, resorts, spas, condominiums and wineries from which he earns such handsome profits.

Commerce with India cannot be separated from the senior Trump who once confessed “It has been my desire for many years to be involved in a great project in Mumbai, and it is my honour to bring the Trump lifestyles to the citizens of this truly global metropolis.” In 2014, he announced the launch of Trump Tower Mumbai, an 800-ft 75-storey skyscraper being built in Mumbai’s Worli district by the Lodha Group. The gold and glass apartments of over 2,000 sq ft, each with three or four bedrooms, advertise indoor Jacuzzis, Poggenpohl kitchen cabinets and automatic toilets. They are priced from $1.6 million upwards. He also entered into an arrangement in August 2012 with the developer Panchshil Realty for a luxury residential Trump Towers in Pune – described as “two striking glass façade towers of 23 storeys each, offering 46 spectacular single-floor residences.” Trump Towers Gurgaon, with its 258 apartments, promises to “quickly become the most prestigious address in the city, with its stunning architecture, beautiful interior options and lavish amenity spaces.” Gurgaon hoardings scream “Trump has arrived. Have you?”

The slogan in Kolkata is “Trump is redefining the skyline of Kolkata”. Mr Trump Jr came to see work in progress on the 137 ultra-luxury apartments built by the Unimark Group, RDB Group and Tribeca Developers but under the Trump brand. This is the cleverness of the operation. The Trump Organisation doesn’t need to invest in India. Its brand name sells. The ambitious new rich will pay handsomely for Trump apartments. Some reports claim 75 per cent of the Kolkata flats have already been sold since the project was launched in mid-October. Others place it at a more modest 50 per cent. “We have been able to deliver the best of the best product here” (Mr Trump Jr said in Kolkata). Trump Towers must be the envy of other promoters who have been struggling for years to sell their luxury units in a city that despite his hidden pockets of wealth has become the international byword for poverty and squalor.

The Trump Organization is involved in more than 24 countries in America, Asia and Europe. It has been claimed authoritatively that it “has more business entities in India than in any other foreign country”. It is “involved in at least 16 partnerships or corporations” here. Some of his political colleagues have followed his lead and also invested in India. President Trump has always spoken highly of Narendra Modi. He had predicted that “money will pour into India” because the Bharatiya Janata Party leader “had done a fantastic job of bringing people together”. That was some time ago.  “India is doing great” he now says. President Trump knows a Trump flat is a fashion statement with rich Indians. He knows India’s prime minister loves to fawn on Western leaders like Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu. He adores their attentions. That human weakness may be excused. We don’t have to approve either of President Trump’s policies and peculiarities. He is the US president, not India’s. All India wants from him is an honest and dignified working partnership that does not go against the grain of India’s interests to satisfy the American ego.

The writer is the author of several books and a regular media columnist.

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