Ivanka, daughter & adviser, to join Trump India trip

New Delhi: US President Donald Trump’s daughter and his senior adviser Ivanka Trump — who had made a high-profile visit to Hyderabad for the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in November 2017 — will also be joining her father and First Lady Melania Trump during the visits to Ahmedabad, Agra and New Delhi next week, sources confirmed on Friday. President Trump’s son-in-law and Ivanka’s husband Jared Kushner, who is also a senior adviser to the President, will also be part of the visit.

Meanwhile, President Trump sought to mount further pressure on India on the trade front, and was quoted in media reports as saying on Friday:

“I’m going to India next week and we’re talking trade. They’ve been hitting us very hard for many, many years.” President Trump had just recently accused India of not treating the US well, something that New Delhi maintained was said in the context of balance of trade. President Trump also notched up another bizarre figure of 10 million people whom he claimed would greet him in Ahmedabad during the visit. He had earlier mooted the figure of five to seven million. Officials in Gujarat had indicated that between one lakh to two lakh people would welcome Mr Trump, who will be accompanied by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, at the newly-constructed Motera Stadium there and the roadshow from the airport to the stadium that will take place just before that.

“I hear they’re going to have 10 million people. They say anywhere from six to 10 million people are going to be showing up along the route to one of the largest stadiums in the world, the largest cricket stadium in the world,” Mr Trump was quoted as saying in media reports from the US during a re-election campaign rally in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

“Prime Minister Modi said we will have 10 million people to greet you. Here’s my problem, we have a packed house. We have a lot of people, thousands of people who couldn’t get in. It’s going to look like peanuts from now on. I’ll never be satisfied with the crowd if we have 10 million in India,” the US President further said at the US rally.

Sources said the visit of  Trump’s immediate family members including wife Melania, daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner is an indication of how important the US President views this visit as these are his “closest advisers”. Sources also drew parallels with Mr Trump’s G-20 visit to Osaka last year when he had also taken his daughter Ivanka along. They said the President’s visit was the result of “three years of hard work”, especially from the Indian side, adding that the “strategic alignment of the two countries has never been more sharper” in the past 70-plus years.

Besides Ivanka and Jared Kushner, others who will be part of high-powered team include US national security adviser Robert O’Brien, commerce secretary Wilbur Ross and energy secretary Dan Brouillette.