The eldest son of President Donald Trump has arrived in India to help sell luxury apartments and lavish attention on wealthy Indians who have already bought units in Trump-branded developments. Donald Trump Jr, who is on a business trip, will hold a closed-door meeting with top industrialists in the national capital Delhi today. Donald Trump Jr. posed for photos Tuesday morning with Indian developers, who are building the complexes in four cities.
The luncheon meeting at Birla House will be hosted by Congress leader Milind Deora and business leaders Deepak Parekh and Shobhana Bhartiya, sources told PTI. Donald Trump Jr will attend another high-profile closed-door business event in Mumbai, which will be hosted by the Bombay Club. While only 20 top business leaders have been invited, sources have confirmed that Sunil Bharti Mittal will be in attendance. Rest of the names on the list are protected due to security reasons. Also, no political leaders from Delhi are on the list.
Later in the week, he is scheduled to make a speech about Indo-Pacific relations at a New Delhi business summit, sharing the stage with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Trump Organization has licensing agreements with all its Indian business partners, who build the properties and acquire the Trump name in exchange for a fee. The organization has five projects in India, making it the brand’s largest market outside the United States. A luxury complex is already open in the central city of Pune, with other developments in varying stages of construction in the coastal cities of Mumbai and Kolkata, and two in a chrome-and-glass New Delhi suburb, Gurgaon.
The apartments are expensive, though not outrageously so in the overheated real estate world of India’s wealthy elite. An apartment in the Trump Towers complex in Gurgaon runs between $775,000 and $1.5 million.
President Trump has pledged to avoid any new foreign business deals during his term in office to avoid potential ethical conflicts. While the projects that Trump Jr. is promoting in India were inked before his father was elected, ethics experts have long seen the use of the Trump name to promote even existing business ventures as tricky territory.