Ivanka Trump wowed India in remarks at a global conference this week, where she promoted women’s entrepreneurship and talked up ‘our administration’s’ commitment to gender parity.
Hailed by an Indian official as ‘arguably the most powerful woman in the world’ as she was introduced before a panel at the summit on Wednesday, Trump, a senior White House adviser, stepped into the role of chief diplomat at the U.S. sponsored convention.
Rex Tillerson, the U.S. secretary of state, did not trek to India for the summit that was located this year in the IT-savvy city of Hyderabad. His predecessor, John Kerry, and the former president of the United States, Barack Obama, had attended it at several turns in the past.
Ivanka Trump, a senior White House adviser, stepped into the role of chief diplomat at the U.S. sponsored summit that’s been held annually for past eight years and was located this year in the IT-savvy city of Hyderabad
Hailed by an Indian official as ‘arguably the most powerful woman in the world’ as she was introduced before a panel at the Global Entrepreneurship summit on Wednesday
Trump was on hand at the request of India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, U.S. officials have said, to speak about women in the workplace, a policy area she has made her own as a senior adviser to her father in the White House.
It was a joint decision between the friendly countries to zero in on her advocacy, they stated.
As the highest ranking U.S. official at the event Trump joined a group of State Department representatives in afternoon talks with Modi on Tuesday.
Other U.S. officials were present for the meeting, a person familiar with the situation said. Yet, the photo that Modi shared with his 37.2 million Twitter followers was of he and Ivanka at the bilateral alone.
A nicety typically reserved for visiting heads of states and foreign ministers, the photo of India’s head of government and the first daughter communicated the air of authority that she exudes.
Trump serves as an unpaid adviser to the president. So long as she does not take a salary, White House lawyers contend, she will not run afoul of federal nepotism laws.
Her husband Jared Kushner has entered into a agreement with the government. The deal allows them to retain ownership of their lucrative businesses by walling them off from the day-to-day operations.
On a panel Wednesday in Hyderabad, K.T. Rama Rao, Government of Telenga, Minister for IT, referred to Ivanka as ‘arguably the most powerful woman in the world.’
Trump had a frozen face as Rao explained, ‘I didn’t know what to call her because she dons multiple responsibilities.’
Moments later, he described her as an ‘adviser to POTUS’ as he welcomed the panel’s speakers to the stage.
Ivanka Trump, daughter of U.S. President Donald Trump, during the Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) in Hyderabad on Wednesday
Even though Trump was invited by Modi to headline the U.S.-initiated Global Entrepreneurship Summit that Obama awarded to India before he left office, Trump’s trip to South Asia is said to have ruffled feathers at the State Department.
CNN said in a widely-publicized report that quickly made it’s way around the world to Hyderabad that Tillerson purposely hung Ivanka out to dry because he was tired of being overshadowed by the 36-year-old daughter of the president and her husband.
Kushner has made several trips to Asia of his own in a bid to negotiate Middle East peace.
Jared and Ivanka were also on President Trump’s first foreign trip, a long journey to the Middle East and Europe in May. They attended a meeting of the G20 in July.
Ivanka caught flak during the high-level meeting in Germany for occupying her father’s empty seat during a discussion on a women’s fund she helped to develop while he engaged in other activities. She was subsequently absent from President Trump’s short jaunt the following week to France.
The senior White House adviser did not accompany her father to Asia earlier this month, either, cancelling meetings in China and South Korea to promote tax reform in the U.S.
The president’s daughter did travel to Tokyo, her father’s first stop on the trip, but she was in Japan ahead of the U.S. delegation, for a women’s summit, and left before her father entered the country’s airspace.
‘She was pleased to stay stay back with the administration and work on tax reform,’ a White House official contended, stressing in a conversation that Ivanka was not sidelined on the trip that her husband went on and Tillerson was a major part of.
A nicety typically reserved for visiting heads of states and foreign ministers, the photo of India’s head of government Narendra Modi and the first daughter on Tuesday communicated the air of authority the president’s daughter exudes
Trump was on hand at the request of India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, U.S. officials have said, to speak about the issues, which she has made her own as a senior adviser in her father’s White House
In India, it was Ivanka who captivated the country, starring in two panels across two days at the conference. She also delivered an at-capacity keynote address that aired in the wee hours of the morning in the U.S.
‘As President Trump said earlier this year: India has a true friend in the White House,’ she said to applause. ‘In this “City of Pearls” the greatest treasure is you – the dreamers, the innovators, entrepreneurs, and leaders.’
State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert on Tuesday said, ‘I can think of no better representative for the U.S. government to talk about women’s entrepreneurship than her.’
‘We are excited about the focus that this year’s GES puts on the US-India bilateral relationship,’ Nauert said at the top of her remarks to reporters at a press briefing in Washington.
Ivanka had been complimentary of what India has achieved economically earlier in her remarks earlier that day. Mentioning the ‘strengthened friendship between our two peoples’ that’s realized with the conference, Trump skirted the edges of foreign policy in her public remarks.
She made no mention of the Indo-Pacific Asia pivot her father’s administration has adopted, staying on the topic of opportunities for working women.
A source familiar with her conversation with Modi at the closed-door bilateral said government officials discussed the themes of GES. Ivanka stayed in her lane and did not dip into trade policy, the source said.
For her part, Trump acknowledged her unique position in a Tuesday interview with the Times of India. ‘It is a tremendous honor to be serving my father’s administration and the American people,’ she said.
‘In my role as adviser to the president, I have focused my work on women’s economic empowerment, workforce development, education and skills training, entrepreneurship and economic growth,’ she told the publication. ‘I am still overcome with awe when I walk into the White House, a feeling that I doubt will ever go away.’