US President Donald Trump said on Friday he nominated one of his closest aides, Sergio Gor, to be the next US ambassador to India.
Sergio Gor, who is currently the director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office, would also serve as a special envoy for South and Central Asian affairs.
“I am pleased to announce that I am promoting Sergio Gor to be our next United States Ambassador to the Republic of India, and Special Envoy for South and Central Asian Affairs,” Trump said in a post on TRUTH social.
The US President said Gor would remain in his current position until he is confirmed for the India post by the US Senate.
“Sergio is a great friend, who has been at my side for many years. He worked on my Historic Presidential Campaigns, published my Best Selling Books, and ran one of the biggest Super PACs, which supported our Movement,” Trump said, lauding Gor’s work in hiring staff for his second term.
“For the most populous Region in the World, it is important that I have someone I can fully trust to deliver on my Agenda and help us, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN,” Trump wrote.
Gor, in a posting on X, thanked Trump for the nomination and said it would be “the honor of my life” to represent the United States in the new role.
Trump’s announcement about Gor’s nomination came shortly after the abrupt cancellation of a planned visit by US trade negotiators to New Delhi from August 25-29.
Trump’s loyalist Sergio Gor played a critical role in deciding who does and doesn’t get jobs in the current administration.
According to Politico, Gor, in his role overseeing hiring across the administration, endeared himself to the president and his family for adopting a zero tolerance policy toward job-seekers who had been critical of Trump in the past, often scouring their social media posts and occasionally intervening to block hirings.
Gor began working with Trump in 2020, when he was chief of staff of the Trump Victory Finance Committee. He also was a senior advisor to MAGA Inc, and also led Right for America – a political action committee (PAC) – for Trump.
He was born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, in 1986. At that time, it was part of Soviet Russia. He also spent some years in Malta.
Gor previously helped create a publishing venture that paid millions to Trump to produce his books when he was out of office, and ran a super PAC supporting the president in 2024.
Gor was valued by the president for his perceived loyalty, and his willingness to freeze out of government people he considered insufficiently pure in that regard, the New York Times reported.
Moreover, Gor was reportedly involved in providing Trump information that Jared Isaacman, a businessman and ally of Musk whom Trump picked in late 2024 to lead NASA on Musk’s recommendation, had donated money to Democrats in the recent past.
Trump’s announcement came at a crucial time for the US-India relations that seems to have worsened with the planned doubling of US tariffs on goods from India next week.
US-India ties have been strained by Trump’s trade war, with talks on lower tariff rates collapsing after India resisted opening its vast agricultural and dairy sectors, Reuters reported.
Bilateral trade between the two countries is worth more than $190 billion each year.
Trump first imposed additional tariffs of 25% on imports from India, then said they would double to 50% from August 27 as punishment for New Delhi’s increased purchases of Russian oil. Trump has not imposed similar tariffs on goods from China, the biggest purchaser of Russian oil.
India is addressing its future trade relationship with the United States with a “very open mind”, Trade Minister Piyush Goyal said on Friday, while underscoring the consequential and important nature of the relationship to both countries.
(With inputs from agencies)
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