Narendra Modi – India

Narendra Modi’s 2014 campaign slogan, “Good times ahead,” is in many ways cut from the same idealistic cloth as “Make America Great Again.” Indeed, the similarities between Modi and Trump are numerous. Both men have made it their top goals to strengthen economic growth by deregulating key industries and taking a protectionist approach to manufacturing, reflected in their respective “Make in India” and “America First” policies. A former tea merchant, Modi has often been described as a Hindu nationalist, with alleged goals to replace secularism with Hinduism as the guiding principle of Indian government and society. Like Trump, he’s interested in “draining the swamp” of public corruption. To that end, Modi took an extreme measure in November, eliminating all 500 and 1,000 rupee banknotes—90% of the nation’s currency—one of the effects of which was a sharp decline in December’s gold demand.