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Top Trump adviser to visit India for IMEC meeting
Ricky Gill, Trump's South Asia official, will visit India next week for the IMEC summit amid rising tensions between New Delhi and Washington.
The Trump White House’s top official on South Asia, Ricky Gill, is expected to visit India for a summit focused on the India Middle East Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) next week, according to persons aware of the matter. Gill’s visit is expected even as bilateral tensions between New Delhi and Washington have risen in the last week over tariffs and India’s energy purchases from Russia.
Gill, who is currently Senior Director for South and Central Asian Affairs at the powerful National Security Council, is expected to hold meetings with top Indian officials as well as representatives from a number of European nations. The NSC, which is based out of the White House, typically functions as a powerful body that coordinates military, economic and diplomatic policies across a range of government departments and agencies.
Gill is a veteran of the first Trump administration, when he also served in the National Security Council handling Russia and European energy issues. Gill has also served in America’s State Department.
The IMEC Summit, which will be hosted in New Delhi on August 5 and 6, will be attended by officials from European and Middle Eastern nations that are prominent backers of the ambitious connectivity scheme. Launched on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in India in September 2023, IMEC was a planned economic and trade corridor that would link India’s economy to markets in Europe through the Middle East. India, America, the European Union, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, France, Germany and Italy were the key signatories to the 2023 Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that established IMEC.
Talks on operationalising IMEC’s connectivity corridors have faced headwinds due to the outbreak of conflict in West Asia after the October 7 attacks in Israel.
“It has definitely been a source of concern for us and the kind of expectation we had when the agreement was signed in September, we have had to adjust it a bit,” said India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar in 2024, some months after the outbreak of the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
The IMEC summit in New Delhi is expected to push discussions on the trade and connectivity corridor forward.
However, the meeting will also take place in the backdrop of increasingly tense relations between India and America. On Wednesday, US President Donald Trump announced a 25% tariff on India, plus an unspecified penalty for purchasing Russian energy products. The two countries have been unable to clinch a trade agreement despite the fact that talks were launched in February 2025. On the same day, Washington concluded a trade agreement with Pakistan and pledged to help develop the country’s “massive oil reserves”. Later, in a post on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump lambasted India and Russia as “dead economies”.
It is as yet unclear if present bilateral tensions will impact Gill’s plans to travel to India.
As Trump’s top South Asia policy hand in the National Security Council, Gill has a crucial role in shaping the White House’s approach to India. However, in April, the size of the NSC was halved after a number of staffers were either let go or retired to their parent government departments. This has affected the NSC’s traditional influential role in shaping American foreign policy.
However, Gill is still considered one of the few India hands in a position of authority in the Trump administration. Paul Kapur, Trump’s nominee to lead South Asia affairs at the State Department, has not yet been confirmed by the United States Senate. There have also been no announcements about the administration’s plans to nominate an Ambassador to India. This matters particularly at a time when the bilateral relationship has faced some strain.
The IMEEC will comprise of two separate corridors, the east corridor connecting India to the Gulf and the northern corridor connecting the Gulf to Europe. The corridor intends to enhance connectivity, increase efficiency, reduce costs, secure regional supply chains, increase trade accessibility and generate jobs, resulting in a transformative integration of Asia, Europe and Middle East.
(b) to (e) An Intergovernmental Framework Agreement (IGFA) between India and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) concerning cooperation for operation of the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEEC) was signed on 13 February 2024. The main elements of the Framework include development and management of a logistics platform, including a digital ecosystem, and provision of supply chain services to handle all types of general cargo, bulk, containers and liquid bulk in order to enable IMEEC.
