Trumpeting Trump: Between American real estate foray in India, trade deals to trade wars

US President Donald John Trump is as much recognized for his uncontrived press conferences, protracting and retracting statements, controversial resolutions to diplomatic issues and undiplomatic gaffes as much as he is acknowledged for starting an obtuse trade war which redundantly unsettled the world financial markets, upended decades of negotiated global trade agreements and stoked worries about a new wave of reticent inflation.

- DR. SHADAB AHMED

Despite the personal and political bonhomie with the Indian Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, there is no love lost and Indo-American relations under Trump can be at best described as ambivalent in nature.

But when Trump is not the partisan Trump, he is the entrepreneurial Trump. With his "Trump Towers", a series of Trump-branded real estate projects that are rapidly expanding in a resurgent India driven by e-commerce boom and manufacturing expansion in the industrial and warehousing sectors, Trump signaled the entry of the American real estate into India along with his son Eric Frederick Trump from the renowned Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida, USA.

India has emerged as an influential market for The Trump Organization conglomerate for the increasing demand for luxury homes in the country. The business model of Trump Towers in India follows a brand licensing strategy. The Trump Organization does not directly invest in real estate projects in India. Instead, it licenses the "Trump" name to Indian real estate developers who finance, construct and sell luxury properties under the Trump brand. The Trump Organization earns royalty fees or a percentage of sales in exchange for allowing developers to use its brand name, which adds an internationalized appeal to the properties.