Trump’s billionaire diplomacy seeks out best of refining tech

In the world of global energy, there are projects that are ambitious, and then there are projects that are “Trumpian.” When MAGA supremo Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that the United States would build its first new oil refinery in half a century—with backing from India’s Reliance Industries—he framed it in characteristic superlatives. “America is returning to real energy dominance,” Trump declared, hailing what he called a “historic $300 billion deal,” the largest energy investment in American history.

Strip away the hyperbole and the move represents something unusual: a major new US refinery—planned for the Port of Brownsville, Texas—with a leading investor from India, a country simultaneously navigating oil ties with Russia, Iran and the US. The project reflects a rare convergence of geopolitical derring-do, energy economics, and billionaire diplomacy linking Trump with India’s richest family, the Ambanis.



The proposed refinery— under the banner “America First Refining”— is designed to process American shale crude and export refined fuels such as gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. If completed, it would help address a structural mismatch in the US energy system: it produces vast quantities of light shale oil but many existing refineries were built decades ago to process heavier imported crude.

More striking than the proposed refinery itself is the identity of the partner. Reliance, controlled by Mukesh Ambani, is not merely another foreign investor. It operates the world’s largest refining complex at Jamnagar in Gujarat and has quietly become one of the most technically sophisticated refiners in the global oil business.

To understand why Reliance is the chosen partner for a Texas revival, one must look at the barren Jamnagar landscape in the late 1990s. There, against the advice of every global consultant who cited a lack of water, power, and roads, Reliance Industries, then under the tutelage of Dhirubhai Ambani, built RPL, the world’s largest grass-roots oil refinery, a gigantic 1.24 million-barrel-per-day ecosystem that fundamentally changed the global oil trade.

The Jamnagar Refinery’s uniqueness lies in its Nelson Complexity Index (NCI) of 21.1—the highest in the world; NCI is a measure of an oil refinery’s capability to produce high-value products. While most refineries are “simple” plants that require high-quality “sweet” crude, Jamnagar was built to process the “bottom of the barrel” oil — heavy, sour, and cheap crudes from places like Venezuela and Iran –– and transform them into ultra-premium fuels that meet EU and US green standards.



This technical audacity turned India from a fuel-deficit nation into a global export hub, even though the country lacks its own oil spigot. It also gave Mukesh Ambani, the “Master Builder” who is said to have lived in a trailer during the project’s construction, a reputation for doing the impossible on a record-breaking timeline. The refinery effectively shifted India from being a net importer of refined fuels to a major exporter.

So in Brownsville, the US is not just getting capital; it is effectively buying the “Reliance Blueprint” to solve its own structural mismatch; in return, Reliance –– and India –– get a “Jamnagar West.” A small additional detail: there is a US mid-term election coming up in Nov and sub-par performance in Texas will be a disaster for MAGA.

Typically, it is Washington’s famed lobbyists who grease the wheels of such deals. But from all accounts, the “Donesh Trumpani” alliance was fuelled by what can best be described as dynastic diplomacy.

It all began with Ivanka Trump’s 2017 visit to Hyderabad for the Global Entrepreneurship Summit where Mukesh Ambani first met her. By March 2024, she and Jared Kushner –– and their daughter Arabella ––– were personal guests at the Ambani pre-wedding celebrations – –in Jamnagar. Donald Trump Jr.’s 2025 visit to Vantara, the Ambanis’ animal conservation project in Gujarat, further signalled a bonding between the heirs of both empires, months after Mukesh Ambani and Nita attended Trump’s second inauguration in Jan.

Spurring the deal in recent days was the US ambassador to New Delhi, Trump confidante Sergio Gor. Seated next to Mukesh, during the India-US T20 world cup game, they were said to be discussing more than fours and sixes.