{"id":181997,"date":"2025-08-24T14:04:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-24T09:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/?p=181997"},"modified":"2025-08-24T14:04:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-24T09:04:12","slug":"india-hires-us-firm-mercury-to-lobby-trump-administration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/2025\/08\/24\/india-hires-us-firm-mercury-to-lobby-trump-administration.html","title":{"rendered":"India hires US firm Mercury to lobby Trump administration"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-182000\" src=\"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/assests\/2025\/08\/US-Inda.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"921\" height=\"515\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Srinagar: India has hired US lobbying giant Mercury Public Affairs in a desperate attempt to influence the Donald Trump-led administration amid escalating tensions between New Delhi and Washington.<\/p>\n<p>According to Kashmir Media Service, a public filing with the US Department of Justice revealed that India will pay Mercury $75,000 per month for \u201cpublic relations, communications and government relations advice, including outreach to US media and officials.\u201d The deal raises India\u2019s total monthly lobbying expenditure in Washington to $275,000.<\/p>\n<p>Mercury has assigned David Vitter, a former US Senator, and Bryan Lanza, a former Trump campaign official, to represent India. The firm has a record of political consulting, crisis management and coalition building for governments worldwide.<\/p>\n<p>The development comes just days before new US tariffs of 25 percent on Indian goods are set to take effect.<\/p>\n<p>Observers note that Islamabad has gained traction in Washington by arranging high-level meetings, including between its Army Chief General Asim Munir and President Trump, and by attracting US interest in Pakistan\u2019s critical mineral and energy sectors.<\/p>\n<p>Analysts believe India\u2019s increased lobbying is aimed at countering Pakistan\u2019s growing diplomatic footprint in Washington during Trump\u2019s second term. KMS-12K<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Srinagar: India has hired US lobbying giant Mercury Public Affairs in a desperate attempt to influence the Donald Trump-led administration amid escalating tensions between New Delhi and Washington. According to Kashmir Media Service, a public filing with the US Department of Justice revealed that India will pay Mercury $75,000 per month for \u201cpublic relations, communications &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":182000,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-181997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-india"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181997\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmsnews.org\/kms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}