 "Trump's nomination of Gor as Washington's ambassador to Delhi comes at a time when India-US relationship is suffering a freefall. Image: File pic/ Reuters")
The naming of Sergio Gor, a key White House aide and a fierce Trump loyalist, as the new ambassador to India has added a new dimension to the ongoing US-India saga. Gor serves as the director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office, and it is his job to vet and recruit thousands of federal employees entering the second Trump administration. Which, we are told, he is doing with aplomb.
The Tashkent-born Gor, short for Gorokhovsky, is reportedly an understated but very powerful figure in the Trump White House. He enjoys the president’s complete confidence and ensures that only ‘America First’ loyalists are hired across the federal government.
The New York Times reported last December that Gor oversaw “loyalty tests” for applicants who wanted to work in the second Trump administration and were given a set of questions “designed to assess their loyalty to president-elect Trump.” Those who couldn’t satisfy him with their answers on the “events of January 6, 2021, and whether they believed the 2020 election was stolen”, did not get the job.
This was somewhat reinforced by the White House communications director Steven Cheung, who said in a statement to The Hill that “as a long-time advisor, there is nobody more capable of ensuring the government is staffed with people who are aligned with the mission to make America great again and work towards implementing the president’s agenda.”
In short, Gor is a lackey of lackeys, and Trump is giving him a much wider and an even more complex role than just nominating him as the ambassador to India.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsGor will also serve as the ‘Special Envoy for South and Central Asian Affairs’ , which means along with India, he will oversee America’s relationship with a much wider region including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, according to the US State Department classification.
Given the geopolitical and geo-economic fault lines of this vast region, the history of India-Pakistan animosity, this is a huge responsibility and an extremely complicated mandate even for a career diplomat. What makes matters more interesting is that Gor is neither a diplomat, nor a technocrat. He is a political appointee. A complete novice for a demanding job.
The move, however, symbolizes a Trump administration that is short on talent, short on experience, high on bluster and packed with loyalists who owe their career to Trump.
Gor’s nomination comes at a time when India-US relationship is suffering a freefall, resembling a freak reality show with Trump as the chief protagonist, just as he was in The Apprentice. It’s a fast-paced, gripping thriller with a new twist almost every week, if not every other day. And almost all of it is scripted by the master fiction writer at The Oval office.
Trump has kept largely quiet after ratcheting up tension with his threats, abuses and tariffs on India. His minions have been doing all the talking instead. Treasury secretary Scott Bessent is accusing India of “profiteering” and “arbitrage” off cheap Russian oil. Trump’s trade adviser Peter Navarro has called India “laundromat for the Kremlin,” and demanded that India must stop buying oil from Russia if it wants to be recognized as America’s ‘strategic partner’.
Navarro, whom Elon Musk called “a moron” and “dumber than a sack of bricks”, doesn’t know or doesn’t care that behaving like a colonizer isn’t the best way to approach Indians. A White House spokesperson has described America’s tariffs on India as “sanctions”, and US vice president JD Vance has suggested that India is the collateral damage of America’s battle against Russia, clarifying on Sunday that Trump had applied “aggressive economic leverage” such as “secondary tariffs on India” to force a change in Russia’s behaviour.
Which is a little strange, considering that Trump seems to be warming up to Putin after the meeting in Alaska, and appears sympathetic to Russia’s core concerns. US oil major Exxon Mobil, meanwhile, is re-entering the Sakhalin-1 oil and gas project and Trump recently seemed particularly displeased with Ukraine after the latter blew up the Druzhba pipeline that supplies Hungary with Russian oil.
So, while Trump is apparently getting at Putin by slapping sanctions on India, as his cronies claim, he is simultaneously trying to ensure Russian fuel gets uninterrupted supply in Europe, and has given China, the world’s largest buyer of Russian fuel, a free ride. It makes little sense.
The reaction in India has been apoplectic. Trust is at an all-time low. Comparisons are being drawn with Nixon’s sending of the USS Enterprise to the Bay of Bengal in 1971 or US sanctions on India post Pokhran tests in 1998. Diplomats and policy wonks from both sides who have worked hard for decades to stitch a closer bilateral partnership, are dismayed that 25 years of work has been washed away in less than 25 days.
Into this cauldron arrives Gor. This development might go both ways. In his Truth Social post, Trump called Gor a “a great friend, who has been at my side for many years.” He also said “for the most populous Region in the World, it is important that I have someone I can fully trust to deliver on my Agenda and help us, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN. Sergio will make an incredible Ambassador. Congratulations Sergio!”
One way of looking at this is by sending one of his most trusted interlocutors to India, Trump is attempting damage control. He is extending an olive branch to rescue a relationship which is crash landing without a floor. Trump’s ego wouldn’t allow him to directly engage with prime minister Narendra Modi and settle the differences that he has created in a fit of pique and unilaterally callous actions. Gor may allow him the chance to interact with India and understand New Delhi’s concerns better.
Conversely, it presents India with the opportunity to engage with Trump via a direct channel and sort out the differences in the larger interest of bilateral relationship and issues of mutual concern. It could take essential diplomatic interactions out of public eye, allowing both sides to engage quietly in backroom negotiations. It suits India’s strategic culture. With the new envoy playing the role of a messenger, India may get access to the American president and his innermost circles.
Noises to this effect are being made in Washington DC. Steve Bannon, Trump’s former senior adviser who still enjoys unique access to the American president and dines with him on occasions, told American media outlet Politico that “I believe Sergio is the only person outside of [chief of staff] Susie [Wiles] and a handful of others who actually has walk-in privileges to the president at any time, day or night… If I’m [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi in India — and I say this as somebody that’s so pro that relationship — I couldn’t think of a better pick.”
This is quite the optimistic view, however.
Gor’s appointment could equally go very wrong if he brings political activism to New Delhi. Trump was very clear that he was sending Gor to “deliver” on his MAGA agenda. It is a view also aired by Bessent, who wrote in his congratulatory post that “American people can be certain that Sergio will be an exceptional steward of America’s interests in the most populous region of the world.” Secretary of commerce Howard Lutnick’s statement, that “Sergio is a fearless advocate” for Trump and “India is in great hands” has been noted with raised eyebrows in India. One hopes Trump isn’t sending a viceroy to New Delhi.
The barely concealed patronising tone reflected in Trump or his minions’ comments do not inspire confidence. If Gor tries to railroad MAGA ‘agenda’ in New Delhi, he will end up damaging an already fragile relationship even more. India didn’t bend when it was weaker and poorer. It won’t bend now.
The appointment that clubs India with the wider region is a return to the Richard Holbrooke moment in American diplomacy when the Obama administration clubbed India and Pakistan under ‘special envoy’ Holbrooke. The move was rescinded after severe pushback from India. Evidently, the re-hyphenation of Pakistan and India is being institutionalized in Washington DC by an administration that has warmed up to Pakistan and its military dictator, Asim Munir, at the cost of savaging ties with India.
A complete greenhorn who knows little about India, Pakistan and the complexity of this region, has less experience than even an intern in South Block, Gor may prove inadequate for the task. Worse still, he could be putty in the hands of manipulative Rawalpindi generals who have proved adept at playing Trump.
Gor’s appointment, therefore, should be seen more as a setback to New Delhi. It signals a quiet burial of America’s Indo-Pacific strategy that pivots on Indian exceptionalism in the region. It may further erode the institutional structures that have been put in place over decades, subject bilateral ties to even more unpredictability and tie India’s identity down to South Asia.
Fixated with winning a ‘trade war’ with India, Trump has proved singularly incapable of grasping the true gamut of US-India ties. It would take a giant leap of faith to assume that his trusted messenger would provide the silver bullet to mend the ties. Expect even more injuries.
The writer is Deputy Executive Editor, Firstpost. He tweets as @sreemoytalukdar. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.