Opinion A new American ambassador, and a message from Trump: India matters

At just 38, Gor will be the youngest American ambassador to New Delhi. He has never served in the Foreign Service, never negotiated a treaty, never cultivated a network of India hands. But he was at Trump’s side throughout the latter’s campaigns and in the White House, eventually running the Presidential Personnel Office. He is not a detached official; he is a confidant. That makes his appointment unconventional, but also consequential. Elon Musk, never one for restraint, once dismissed Gor as “a snake”. For New Delhi, that is less insult than insight: Survival in Washington politics demands serpentine skill. The real question is whether Gor can shed the skin of a campaign operative and emerge as a statesman.

Gor arrives at a moment of compound fracture in India–US relations. Tariff wars have clouded the economic skies. India resents Washington’s hard line on energy imports, while the United States is irritated by New Delhi’s refusal to fall in line over Russia. Ambitious trade targets have collapsed. Defence deals are on ice. Trump is irked that India refused to acknowledge his supposed role in securing the ceasefire with Pakistan after Operation Sindoor. For New Delhi, such recognition would have violated its opposition to third-party mediation. For Washington, it was a personal slight. And Trump’s affection for Islamabad has revived old suspicions in New Delhi that the US is tempted again by the discredited habit of hyphenating India with Pakistan.

This is not the sunny trajectory of a few years ago. It is a moment of strain, uncertainty, and recalibration. Yet paradoxically, it also calls for someone like Gor. New Delhi has long complained that its concerns, however central, often struggle to reach the White House unfiltered. Gor changes that equation. When he speaks, he will carry not the cautious tones of a career diplomat but the unvarnished voice of a President’s confidant.

That access could prove decisive. His dual role as ambassador to India and special envoy for South and Central Asia signals that Washington, hopefully, sees New Delhi as pivotal to the region’s balance. Unlike Richard Holbrooke’s ill-fated brief under former President Barack Obama, which New Delhi immediately recognised as an attempt to smuggle India into the AfPak box, Gor would be well advised not to imagine himself in the same mould. Holbrooke at least carried the gravitas of a long diplomatic career; Gor will bring little more than campaign instincts and the borrowed authority of proximity to Trump. If he starts to assume the role of an external mediator, a South Asian power broker in the Holbrooke tradition, he will discover quickly that New Delhi has no appetite for such hubris. India has endured too many sermons about mediation to indulge another experiment;  New Delhi’s response, as Holbrooke discovered, is rarely dramatic, it is a polite smile, followed by a long, chilly silence.

The agenda before Gor is formidable. Trade tensions are the immediate fire to douse, for tariff escalation will corrode the partnership. Defence and security ties must be revitalised through co-production and technology transfer. Climate and energy cooperation can be framed as an opportunity rather than a burden. And the people-to-people connections, the five million Indian Americans who form a living bridge, remain the most durable source of goodwill. Gor, himself an immigrant success story, embodies that narrative.

At the same time, India has been widening its options. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s recent visit to New Delhi reopened channels with Beijing, while External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and National Security Adviser Ajit Doval were in Moscow to reaffirm their “special and privileged” partnership ahead of the SCO. PM Narendra Modi’s own travel to the summit in Tianjin underlines that New Delhi will not place all its bets on one power. With China edging towards rapprochement with Washington and Russia enjoying new warmth, India is hedging carefully. Yet, despite this diversification, there is no escaping the fact that the US remains indispensable. Its policies may be volatile, its President mercurial, but no other partnership offers India the same transformative potential in trade, technology, defence, and global influence.

One card remains to be played. The personal chemistry between Modi and Trump was once an asset. The images of “Howdy Modi” in Houston and “Namaste Trump” in Ahmedabad embodied a political warmth that reassured both sides. Reviving that chemistry, in altered circumstances, could help break the current logjam. Gor’s proximity to Trump could be the channel through which that renewal happens, but reaching out to the Indian Prime Minister, given the circumstances, will require humility and patience.

Yes, Gor’s appointment has raised eyebrows. Yes, he arrives at a low point, amid tariffs, tempers, Sindoor, Musk’s “snake” remark and Pakistan. But diplomacy is not always about pedigree; it is about access, intent, and will. By sending a trusted confidant to New Delhi, Trump has made a wager: That India matters enough to merit one of his closest aides. If Gor listens as much as he speaks, if he can combine loyalty with imagination, if he can turn personal proximity into institutional trust, then this appointment could surprise sceptics. It could even mark a turning point, the moment when two democracies, at a fragile juncture, found new energy and purpose.

India and the US are not just important to each other; together, they are essential to the shaping of the 21st century. In that task, Gor’s tenure in New Delhi may yet prove decisive, but only if he arrives quickly, with a swift Senate confirmation, and begins the hard work of healing, listening, and rebuilding.

The writer is dean and professor, School of International Studies, JNU, and a former member of the NSAB