15 billionaires or 'oligarchs' run India, country 'suffers' from bureaucracy: ex-Trump aide Aug 5, 2025 Former US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer would try to predict India’s position in talks by tracking the interests of its 15 billionaires or “oligarchs who ran the country”, the one-time close Trump aide writes in 'No Trade is Free', giving a rare insider’s peek into how the US President thinks about dealing with India.
Robert E. Lighheiser who was a United States trade representative during Trump's first term says in his book chapter on India s,
there were 15 oligarchs who basically ran the country. His Friend said only about seven of them actually run the country. The others
just try to influence these seven.
Lighheiser writes that Modi clearly wanted GSP back. What is GSP and how did India lose it? In 2019, Trump announced that he was removing India from the generalized system of preferences or the GSP. GSP is a preferential tariff system implemented by developed countries to support the economies of developing countries. India was the biggest beneficiary of the GSP which allowed preferential duty-free imports of up to
5.6 billion.
Lighheiser concludes that India really was just protectionist that it was part of its political DNA and the best way to deal with that was through unilateral action.