Who Gets Used for the Pageant
In New Delhi's chaotic traffic, about 100 auto-rickshaws are now carrying large images of U.S. President Donald Trump and the Statue of Liberty, turning working vehicles into rolling billboards for a U.S. public-relations campaign. The slogan plastered across them reads: "Happy Birthday America!" The spectacle was unveiled last month by Sergio Gor, the U.S. ambassador to India, as part of a broader push by the U.S. to mark the 250th anniversary of American independence with celebrations, cultural events and public outreach campaigns planned in several countries.
The U.S. Embassy in New Delhi framed the stunt in the language of cheerful freedom, posting on social media last month: "Freedom is on the move … literally!" It also urged people in the capital to flag down the auto-rickshaws, saying, "Catch them if you can — they’ll be popping up all over Delhi soon." The message is clear enough: the apparatus of empire gets to dress itself up as festivity, while ordinary streets and ordinary labor become the delivery system.
The Drivers at the Bottom
For many auto-rickshaw drivers, the campaign carried little meaning. Driver Ganesh Kumar, whose vehicle carried one of the Trump posters, said he initially refused when organizers approached him. "I told them I didn’t want it," Kumar said. He relented after organizers offered him a packet of tea. "They said, ‘Please let us put (the poster). We’ll give you a packet of tea,’" he said. The exchange lays out the hierarchy plainly: a powerful institution asks, a worker says no, and the refusal softens only after a small inducement.
Another driver, Pradeep Kumar, said he agreed to carry the poster mostly because the canopy of his auto-rickshaw was torn and needed covering. Asked if he knew what the advertisement said, Kumar replied, "I know he is Trump. Don’t know much other than that." The campaign may be designed as diplomacy and outreach from above, but on the ground it lands as a patch job, a trade, or just another thing attached to a vehicle that has to keep moving.
Diplomacy, Tariffs, and the Public Relations Machine
Washington is seeking to stabilize relations with India after ties soured over Trump’s tariff policies, which raised duties on several Indian exports. The rickshaw campaign sits inside that larger effort to repair relations through image management and public outreach rather than anything resembling accountability to the people who absorb the costs of trade fights and diplomatic games.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is also expected to visit New Delhi this weekend. The timing underscores how state power moves in layers: ambassadors roll out spectacle, secretaries arrive to manage the fallout, and workers in the city are left to carry the branding through traffic.
The campaign was not introduced as a local initiative from drivers or neighborhoods, but as part of a broader U.S. effort tied to the 250th anniversary of American independence. Celebrations, cultural events and public outreach campaigns are planned in several countries, with New Delhi serving as one more stage for a state-sponsored performance of freedom. The fact that the vehicles are auto-rickshaws — the daily labor of drivers navigating the capital — makes the whole thing even more blunt: the image of power rides on the backs of people who had to be persuaded, and in some cases nudged with tea, to participate.
The embassy’s own language tried to make the campaign sound playful and spontaneous. But the facts on the ground show a familiar arrangement: a foreign government, a diplomatic mission, and a publicity push that uses working people and public space to sell a story about freedom while the actual decisions are made elsewhere.