Donald Trump Jr arrives in India to sell Trump Towers, gets virtual red carpet

Donald Trump Jr, the eldest son of US President Donald Trump, has arrived in India to help sell luxury apartments and lavish attention on wealthy Indians who have already bought units in several Trump-branded developments.

Donald Trump Jr, the eldest son of US President Donald Trump

Trump Jr met this morning with Indian developers building the apartment complexes in four cities. An apartment in the Trump Towers in Gurgaon near Delhi, runs from $775,000 to $1.5 million.

While he is making what has been dubbed an unofficial visit to India to promote his family's real estate projects, he's also planning to deliver a foreign policy speech on Indo-Pacific relations at an event with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The younger Trump's weeklong itinerary includes cocktail parties, dinners and events with real estate brokers, business leaders and prospective buyers.

Beginning today, Trump Jr has a full schedule of meet-and-greets with investors and business leaders throughout India where the Trump family has real estate projects. India is the Trump Organization's biggest international market, with four real estate projects under way – in Mumbai, Gurgaon, Pune and the Kolkata.

The luxury apartment buildings near the Trump development in Gurgaon have names like Palm Springs and Central Park, even as they overlook pothole-ridden highways. The Trumps and their partners are offering buyers the opportunity to become ''members of the Trump family,'' with the promise of exclusive amenities such as an infinity swimming pool, a billiards room and valet services.

President Trump has pledged to avoid new foreign business deals during his time in office, to avoid potential ethical conflicts. Trump Jr is promoting projects inked before his father was elected.

Indian newspapers have been running full-page, glossy advertisements hyping his arrival and the latest Trump Tower project under the headline: ''Trump is here - Are You Invited?'' The ads also solicited home buyers to plunk down a booking fee (about $38,000) to ''join Mr. Donald Trump Jr for a conversation and dinner''. Public relations executives working with two local developers arranging the Trump dinner declined to give specifics about the event, even to the US media.

News that the Trump Organization would be offering buyers in the Trump Tower the chance to meet the president's son sparked criticism of potential conflicts of interest, and the fact that Trump Jr will be giving a foreign policy speech while on a private business trip complicates the matter further, ethics experts said.

The senior Trump did not divest himself of his businesses when he was elected president. Rather, he turned the day-to-day operations over to his older sons, Don Jr and Eric, to run.

The overlap in India between father and son creates a spectacle with few parallels in business and diplomacy, The Washington Post says.

The younger Trump arrived on a Boeing 757 nicknamed Trump Force One, because the president crisscrossed the United States on the plane during the campaign.

The Trump family earned as much as $3 million in royalties in 2016 from ventures in India, according to the president's financial disclosure report. And Ivanka Trump made her own trip to India in November, in her capacity as a member of Trump administration, just as sales were about to start on some of the residential projects (See: Ivanka Trump raises a toast to Modi and India's evolution).

''The idea that the president's son would be going and shilling the president's brand at same time Donald Trump is president and is managing strategic and foreign relations with India - that is just bizarre,'' Daniel S Markey, who helped coordinate South Asia policy at the State Department during the George W Bush administration, told The Post.

The White House, asked if Donald Trump Jr's trip gave even an appearance of a conflict of interest, declined to comment on the matter.