In the waning days of their trade mission to India earlier this month, a group of lawmakers and business leaders from Utah visited the Taj Mahal in Agra, one of the great wonders of the world.
Days later, the 17th-century marvel was visited by Donald Trump Jr., son of President Donald Trump, accompanied by 126 guests from 40 countries.
The U.S. president has indicated he also plans to visit India as trade negotiations continue.
All of these visits show the economic and strategic importance of this South Asian country, something the Utahns on the trade mission said they awakened to as they traveled to multiple cities on their two-week tour.
During his final hours in India, state Senate President Stuart Adams, who led the delegation, spoke to the Deseret News about the beauty of the Taj Mahal. “It’s the detail. It’s not painted — it’s all hand-carved stone. ... I can’t imagine doing it today with all the tools we have, let alone doing it without those types of tools."
Adams said the Taj Mahal was representative to him of the talent he found in India, one of the largest and fastest growing countries in the world.
What Utah leaders see in India
“The quicker you can try to come into an emerging market, the better off you are. And India is emerging,” Adams said in mid-November in a hotel lobby in Bangalore. At the same time, this country already has a highly educated and capable workforce, the state senate president noted.
After a multi-week trade mission, Adams said Utah hasn’t “even polished the surface, let alone scratched” it on what the future of this relationship could look like.
Adams said that plans are already in the works to bring delegations from India to Utah next year.
Dominic Thomas Karipaparambil of Bharat Valley, a startup incubator, chimed in during the interview, saying he hopes to organize two separate trips — one with state governments and a second with businesses that are looking to invest in Utah to visit the state’s universities and explore its world-class healthcare research and development, Karipaparambil said.
“We are also looking at companies that are already importing minerals from other parts of the world,” he said. “We want to bring them to Utah to show them what we have.”
Meanwhile, another Utah delegation, possibly accompanied by Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, could make its way to India next year.
The head of Lifetime Products, a Utah company that manufactures folding tables and chairs made of plastic out of China, said his company had explored India as a possible option to set up its factory a decade ago. But they decided not to invest, “and I don’t know why,” said BJ Haccke, the CEO and president of Lifetime.
“It was a mistake. We should have been selling here, manufacturing here and more,” he said during a Corporate Connect event in Bangalore. “We’ve loved it.”
“I noticed almost all the tables in India are made of wood,” he added, speaking into the mic in front of a room full of 50 or so entrepreneurs. “They used to be made of wood in Utah, too, until we started making them. We’re hoping to change that here.”
Adams said that’s the exact sentiment he felt about other Utah businesses missing an opportunity to invest in India early on. He was sitting next to Jonathan Freedman, the president and CEO of the World Trade Center Utah, who also chimed in.
“Here in India, it’s an amazing market for Utahns to export to and grow their sales here in India, the most populous nation in the world,” said Freedman. He worked on sourcing and importing products from India for a decade and a half.“I’ve seen a great opportunity here,” Freedman said, “It’s a fantastic alternative to working in China. ... As we diversify, we strengthen our supply chains and our resilience.”
India is the ninth largest U.S. trading partner as well as the world’s largest democracy and American ally, making it “a natural place to do business,” he added.
Despite the 50% tariffs levied on this South Asian country, India and the U.S. will double bilateral trade to $500 billion by 2030, thanks to a deal President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi signed in February this year.
Utah can benefit from this by attracting “that foreign investment to fuel our growth at home,” said Freedman.
“This is going to provide for high-paying, sustainable jobs,” he added.
India-U.S. at ‘critical juncture’
The White House’s decision to levy 50% tariffs on India, including a 25% penalty for buying Russian oil and arms, has brought the relationship between New Delhi and Washington, D.C., to a critical juncture. That’s according to Lt. Gen. CA Krishnan, the former deputy chief of the Indian army, who spoke during a roundtable discussion hosted by the Indus International Research Foundation in Bangalore, Karnataka, during the trip.
“There are some silver linings available in the midst of all these dark clouds that we see and the daily surprises that we come across,” Krishnan said. He is an adviser to IIRF, an independent think tank based in New Delhi, which sold copies of its latest strategic yearbook for 2025 at the event.
The army veteran suggested Indians understand President Trump’s point of view to put America First as well as his big web of ever-changing policy.
“It seems that after so many years or two centuries, you started copying our politics. We understand what he says ... because that’s exactly what our politicians have been doing for a very long time,” said Krishnan.
He noted that despite the tumultuous headlines, the U.S. renewed its defense cooperation agreement with this South Asian country for another decade following a meeting between U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and his Indian counterpart Rajnath Singh in Malaysia.
“That alone is expected to provide some stability to the strained relations,” Krishnan noted.
On Thursday, several weeks after the agreement was signed, the U.S. approved a $93 million weapons sale to India. It includes Javelin anti-tank missiles and Excalibur precision artillery projectiles, according to the U.S. State Department.
Krishnan said that India has always benefited from its own tariffs and sanctions. “We’ve done the best, biggest breakthroughs in cutting-edge technology” during such times.
It also gives these two allied nations a chance to test each other’s priorities, strengths, and weaknesses, allowing for a stronger, more resilient partnership, Krishnan added.
Despite displaying optimism for a mutually beneficial tariff deal in the near future, “geopolitics will continue to cast its shadows on trade and relations,” Krishnan said. “The U.S. and Indian interests cannot align in every aspect.” He did note that democracy does emerge as a strong binding force between the two countries, as he made a pitch to the trade delegation from Utah to invest in India.
WTC Utah’s Freedman said that “geographically, India is so perfectly located,” at the “crossroads between China and Europe and Africa.” It can serve as a home base for commerce in that entire region, he added.
The avenues to partnership
Adams’ very first meeting after landing in Delhi was with Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal, set by U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer. He was joined by the rest of the delegation, consisting of lawmakers — including state Sen. Daniel Mckay and state Reps. Matt MacPherson and Jason Thompson — businesses and experts.
This relationship with the Indian trade office is “going to have value for years to come,” Adams said, noting that the Indian government showed an interest in working together on energy.
MacPherson remarked about the possibility of collaboration in a conversation with the Deseret News the next day.
Talking about the need for better coal and the problem of air pollution in India, he said, “We’ve been through this.”
“In Utah, we’ve got geographical barriers that make our air very difficult to keep clean as well,“ said MacPherson.
”We have developed technologies that allow us to do things cleaner, more efficiently. I think there’s some benefit that we can provide to them," the state representative added.
He also said Goyal indicated “lingering concerns” over the federal government’s 50% tariff on Indian imports.
Last Thursday, his final day on the tour, Adams met Large and Medium Industries Minister M. B. Patil of Karnataka, a state in Southern India, at the Kempegowda International Airport.
Patil was flanked by Commissioner of Industries and Commerce Department Gunjan Krishna.
The Karnataka minister spoke about the scope of collaboration in the space, defense and technology sectors.
Utah manufacturing, life sciences and diagnostic companies are looking to invest in India while other companies already have a presence.
“A cool byproduct of a trip like this is to elevate Utah on the global stage,” Freedman said. He talked about the promotional video titled “Why Utah?” that features the state’s iconic ski slopes, red rocks and various businesses, including the female-owned Indian restaurant Saffron Valley.
After one evening meeting in New Delhi with Invest India on the first day of his visit, Adams spoke to the Deseret News about Utah helping India develop its ecological parks.
The state Senate president speculated that as the quality of life in India increases, so will the need for a dynamic recreation and tourism industry.
During the meeting, as Adams touted the state’s five national parks, Vinod Zutshi, the former Secretary of the Indian Ministry of Tourism who serves as an adviser to the tourism sector, chimed in. Zutshi said India’s tourism industry is flexible and open to foreign investment in parks as a tourist destination. Same for golf courses.
He also joked about another area of collaboration — a Disney in India. Stuart told the Deseret News he will consider bringing Utah’s Lagoon to India the next time around.