Trump Names Sergio Gor as US Ambassador to India, Clubs Post With Special Envoy to South, Central Asia

New Delhi: Seven months into his presidency and on the verge of imposing steep import tariffs, US President Donald Trump has nominated senior White House official Sergio Gor as ambassador to India, with an additional mandate as special envoy for South and Central Asia – a move that revives sensitivities in New Delhi over being linked to Pakistan.

Making the announcement on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump wrote on Friday night that he was “promoting” White House Director of Presidential Personnel, 38-year-old Sergio Gor to be the next United States Ambassador to India, and Special Envoy for South and Central Asian Affairs.

The State department’s bureau of South and Central Asian covers 13 countries in the region, which means that Gor would be supervising not just India, but also neighbouring Pakistan.

New Delhi has long been prickly about any such hyphenation. 

Before President Obama formally appointed Richard Holbrooke as special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2009, early talk of extending his mandate to India had already drawn strong resistance from New Delhi. Officials lobbied hard to ensure that India was kept out of his title and portfolio, fearing any reference would open the door to outside involvement in Kashmir.

According to a December 2008 US diplomatic cable released by Wikileaks, then foreign secretary Shivshankar Menon had told US officials that a “special envoy would be deeply unpopular and could negatively affect the gains in our bilateral relationship made over the past eight years”.

A week later, in January 2009, then foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee conveyed his unease to outgoing US ambassador David Mulford, saying he was “deeply concerned about any move toward an envoy with a broad regional mandate that could be interpreted to include Kashmir.”

Mulford wrote in his cable that Mukherjee had warned such a mandate “would be viewed by India as risky and unpredictable, exposing issues of vital concern to India to the discretion of the individual appointed. A special envoy smacks of interference and would be unacceptable.”

As The New Yorker later noted, the backlash was so strong that Holbrooke joked he would finish his assignment without ever uttering the “K-word.”

India’s position on the inclusion of this expanded mandate for the newly nominated US envoy is not yet clear.

At an event in New Delhi on Saturday, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar was asked about Gor’s nomination. He said he had “read” about the appointment but declined to offer a view, noting: “Look, I am a foreign minister. I don’t comment on ambassadorial appointments of other countries in public.”

Former Indian foreign secretary and ambassador to the United States Nirupama Rao told The Wire that Gor’s appointment underscored his role as a political loyalist rather than an independent-minded envoy. 

“Gor is not a navigator, he is no Huck Finn exploring the waters, a wanderer learning the river, he is a loyal ferryman. Washington is sending an envoy who rows to orders. The agenda will not be shaped by the river but by faraway shores. Gor is a political operator sent with a script. India might have hoped for someone navigating the currents of history; instead it gets someone rowing to orders,” she said.

Another former foreign secretary, Kanwal Sibal, also raised objections to the dual role.

He described it as “a version of the Special Envoy for India and Pakistan, which we rejected,” adding that by giving the ambassador himself a second mandate, Washington was “reviving the same approach in another form.” 

Sibal wrote that this amounted to “hyphenating India and Pakistan again” and warned that it blurred the Indo-Pacific focus of the partnership. He also argued that the sheer scale of the US mission in India, one of Washington’s largest embassies worldwide, with several consulates and a heavy bilateral agenda, made such “concurrent accreditation” unusual and problematic.

The appointment comes at a time of strained ties between Washington and New Delhi. India bristled when Trump claimed credit for mediating a ceasefire between India and Pakistan following Operation Sindoor in May, insisting that the truce was achieved solely through bilateral military channels.

Tensions deepened when Pakistani army chief General Asim Munir received an unprecedented lunch meeting with Trump just days after the fighting ended. Pakistan subsequently secured a trade agreement with Washington that lowered tariffs and included deals on oil reserves and cryptocurrency.

Adding to the friction, the US is set to raise tariffs on Indian imports to 50 per cent from August 27, doubling the “reciprocal” duties already in place. Washington has justified the move as retaliation for India’s continued purchases of Russian oil. New Delhi has called the measure “unfair and unjustified.” Once implemented, India will face the highest US tariff rate in the world, alongside Brazil.

Gor can only take up his post after confirmation by both the Senate and Congress. According to the American Foreign Service Association, as of August 4, Trump had nominated 61 ambassadors, with 45 still awaiting confirmation.

In his announcement post, Trump described him as a “a great friend” who had worked on his presidential campaigns, published his books, and led a pro-Trump super PAC. 

Trump noted that Gor, as director of presidential personnel, had overseen the hiring of “nearly 4,000 America First Patriots” across government and would remain in that role until his confirmation. 

He added that for “the most populous region in the world,” he wanted someone he could “fully trust to deliver on my agenda,” declaring, “Sergio will make an incredible ambassador.”

Gor, writing on X, stated that he was “beyond grateful” to Trump for his “incredible trust and confidence” in nominating him to be ambassador to India and special envoy for South and Central Asia. “Nothing has made me prouder than to serve the American people through the great work of this administration,” he said, adding that the White House had “achieved historic results in making America great again.”

Calling the appointment “the honour of my life,” Gor declared: “It will be the honor of my life to represent the United States!”.

Politico, citing a Trump administration official who requested anonymity, reported that Gor’s nomination was intended as “a powerful signal to the Modi government by sending an envoy that is very personally close to him.” The official added, “Sergio is a clear signal that the negotiations need to be serious and that all messages come from the president.”

Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist, similarly argued that Gor’s closeness to the president would serve both countries. “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,” Bannon told the news outlet. “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.

“Does he have a deep knowledge base of Indian policy issues? He doesn’t, but this guy’s a quick study. He not only has access to the president, but he has a unique trust. The president trusts this guy, that he’s dealing with him straight.”

Gor, whose public biography in US media has often described him as Maltese-born, was reported by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and the Times of Malta to have actually been born Sergio Gorokhovsky in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, then part of the Soviet Union, in 1986. His lawyer confirmed his Soviet birthplace. 

Records indicate that he spent several years of his childhood in Malta, attending school while his family maintained property there, before emigrating to the United States, where he later became a citizen.

Gor has become one of Trump’s most trusted loyalists. The Washington Post described him as “the most powerful man you’ve never heard of,” noting his pivotal role in overseeing the installation of some 4,000 political appointees in the administration.

At the White House, Gor has played a central role in enforcing loyalty tests for appointments. His business partner and political ally, Donald Trump Jr. said earlier this year that “loyalty has got to be number one,” adding that Gor’s task was to ensure candidates were not only Republicans but also proven Trump supporters “on January 7th,” the day after the Capitol riot.

Known for his extensive political network, he had worked at Fox News, served as spokesman for Senator Rand Paul, and co-founded Winning Team Publishing with Trump Jr., which produced Trump’s books and titles by conservative figures such as Peter Navarro and Charlie Kirk. He also ran the super PAC Right for America, which raised more than $70 million for Trump’s re-election campaign.

Gor was also a fixture at Trump’s Florida estate, where allies dubbed him the “Mayor of Mar-a-Lago”, according to The Post profile. He was also known to be the DJ at conservative gatherings.

But Gor has also attracted criticism. Former congressional colleagues described him to the news article as a “sweet-talking backstabber” bent on power, with one recalling that he named his pet beagle “Machiavelli.”

More recently, the New York Post reported that Gor embarked on what was described as a “revenge tour” against Elon Musk, fanning criticism of the billionaire within Trump’s circle while boasting privately about Tesla’s stock drop. The rift reportedly stemmed from Gor’s role in advising Trump to rescind Musk’s ally’s NASA nomination, leading Musk to go public with scathing criticism of the administration thereafter.

Another New York Post article noted that Gor himself has not undergone full vetting for his powerful personnel role, even as he vets thousands of others for administration jobs. Musk took the opportunity to take aim at Gor publicly by labelling him as “a snake” in a reaction to the report on Twitter.

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