India’s 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.
US President Donald Trump, angry with President Vladimir Putin for refusing to stop his war in Ukraine, directed that ire to India’s Russian oil imports, and doubled the tariff on Indian goods to 50 per cent.
It meant a direct hit for the business empire of India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani. The refining arm of Ambani’s Reliance Industries conglomerate had earned a windfall of nearly $6bn since 2022 by refining discounted crude from Russia and selling it to the west.
The country’s 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 on the “big relief” 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.
But so far nothing has changed for the chair of his eponymous infrastructure conglomerate and ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The billionaires had expected that Trump would be Modi’s “buddy” as the two shared a warm relationship, said Bhaskar Chakravorti, dean of global business at The Fletcher School at Tufts University.
“At the start of his administration, Trump had even put some Indians in prominent positions . . . businesses 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.”
But on top of the tariffs, “Modi and Trump have barely spoken, and to add insult to injury Trump’s new friend is Pakistan”. Add to that the fact that Trump is attacking the visas used by many highly qualified Indians to enter the US, “it is hard to imagine a worse scenario for a perfect let-down storm”, Chakravorti said.
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 “exact opposite has happened” because those “business ties were not enough to keep the relationship from going off the rails”.
“What we can say that is true of this administration is that I think there’s insufficient focus on India, certainly at a high level,” said Drexel.
The rupture in India’s US ties this year symbolises the “dawning of realpolitik for India”, said a Mumbai-based tycoon who is close to Ambani. “We had an exaggerated idea of how important India was to the US,” the person said.
Since Trump took office in January, Ambani and Adani have both sought to strengthen ties.
Ambani has spent $240,000 on lobbying in the US this year, according to Senate disclosures.
Donald Trump Jr has visited Ambani’s refinery in western India and spent time with one of Ambani’s 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. Trump’s son Eric has said he is working on “several” hotels in India and a company connected to Ambani paid a $10mn “development fee” to the Trump Organization.
Trump’s daughter Ivanka attended Anant Ambani’s 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 “still likes Mukesh as a friend”. Reliance did not respond to a request for comment.
Adani has spent at least $150,000 this year on lobbying and legal expenses in the US, according to US Senate lobbying disclosures.
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.
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.
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’s government had not yet served a summons to Adani and his nephew Sagar Adani, who is also charged, despite repeatedly communicating with India’s Ministry of Law and Justice. Both deny all charges.
The case lingers, according to a person aware of the company’s dealings in the US. “Trump doesn’t even know who we are,” the person said.
Adani’s lobbying efforts have not paid off, Chakravorti said, because “Adani 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.”
Adani is looking to invest in US businesses, a person aware of the company’s thinking said, partly in the hope that it would help it secure Trump’s attention.
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.
The spokesperson said the group had “no major operations in the US other than sales of solar modules, which contribute under 2 per cent to our overall profits”, adding that “we continue to evaluate opportunities outside India — including in the US — and remain committed to creating value wherever possible”.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment on Trump’s relationship with Ambani or Adani.
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 “won’t go back to the naive expectation that we had Trump locked down — that was la la land”.
