Ethical Diamond came with a stunning late run to win the Breeders’ Cup Turf in a course record for Grand National-winning trainer Willie Mullins.
The 20-1 chance, who spent most of his early career jumping over hurdles, surged down the outside under Dylan Browne McMonagle to claim one of Flat racing’s biggest races, with more than £2m going to the winner at Del Mar in California.
Ethical Diamond, winner of the Ebor Handicap at York in August, triumphed from runner-up Rebel’s Romance and third-placed El Cordobes, with favourite Minnie Hauk unplaced.
For decades, men in many countries were expected to spend two or even three months’ salary on a diamond engagement ring. This notion – and the iconic status of this gem – did not come about by accident.
The story goes back to 1870, when an Oxford University dropout named Cecil Rhodes set off to try his luck in the Cape Colony – modern-day South Africa, then a key British domain.
Seeing the burgeoning diamond mining sector there, he began renting water pumps to diamond prospectors to prevent flooding of the mines. Then, over the next 20 years, Rhodes and his partner Charles Rudd proceeded to buy out hundreds, and then thousands, of small mines and “claims” – landholdings believed to contain diamonds – often for a pittance when their owners faced bankruptcy. Most miners were small operators, and Rhodes and Rudd had access to serious financial capital – notably the Rothschild banking empire – through their connections in London. As the two partners combined claims into larger mining units, overhead costs were reduced, and operations became more profitable.
The partners incorporated as De Beers Consolidated Mines, De Beers being the name of one of the mines they took over. By 1888, the company had a near-monopoly of South African claims and active diamond mines. With diamonds making up more than 25 percent of South African exports in 1900, De Beers became a powerhouse of the country’s economy, controlling some 90 percent of the world’s total diamond supply. Rhodes himself became a leading imperial figure, serving as prime minister of the Cape Colony from 1890 to 1896.
De Beers was founded upon the racist policies of South Africa, which at the time was ruled by a white minority. The diamonds were extracted by Black miners earning subsistence wages, while De Beers’s white, European-origin shareholders enjoyed the profits.
Following Rhodes’s death in 1902, control of De Beers ultimately passed to German-born entrepreneur Ernest Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer used a combination of financial incentives, strategic pressure, and diplomacy to persuade diamond suppliers in other countries to sell exclusively through the London-based and De Beers-owned “Central Selling Organization” (CSO), which in the 1930s became the unified sales channel for virtually all the world’s pre-cut diamonds. This enabled De Beers to stockpile diamonds, strictly control the release of stones to the global market, and effectively control prices – thereby creating an illusion of diamond scarcity worldwide.
Meanwhile, De Beers sought to enhance global demand for diamonds. In 1946, the company hired NW Ayer, a Philadelphia-based advertising agency, which one year later came up with the legendary slogan, “A diamond is forever”. This reframed the diamond and, specifically, the diamond engagement ring, as a symbol of “eternal love”. Through mass advertising, product placements in films, and celebrity PR – for example, lending jewellery to actors for major events – the campaign transformed the diamond market in the US, Europe and Japan.
Lasting 64 years, until 2011, this campaign was an astounding global success, with Ad Age magazine naming “A diamond is forever” as the top advertisement slogan of the 20th century. De Beers had manufactured a social norm, with the diamond engagement ring becoming almost mandatory in every developed market. While previously, a fiance might give a locket, a string of pearls, or a family heirloom to his intended, the number of American brides with a diamond ring climbed from 10 percent in 1940 to some 80 percent in 1980. In Japan, this figure rose from less than 5 percent in 1960 to 60 percent by 1981.
By the early 1950s, a diamond ring typically cost about $170 – about $2,300 in today’s money. De Beers advertisements initially suggested spending one month’s salary on an engagement ring, but by the 1980s, they were posing the question: “How can you make two months’ salary last forever?” Consumers appeared undeterred by the fact that a diamond’s resale value was typically just 50 percent of its original retail price (in contrast to gold, which has an “official” benchmark price set twice-daily).
By the time Marilyn Monroe sang “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend” in 1953 and the James Bond film “Diamonds Are Forever” was released in 1971, the diamond had become an icon.
The Kimberley diamond mines in South Africa, to which thousands flocked in the 1870s after the discovery of diamonds on the nearby De Beers farm [Gray Marrets/Getty Images]
‘Cartel behaviour’
By the late 1970s, De Beers was annually distributing some 50 million diamond carats, with sales of more than $2bn in the US alone.
But as the 1980s rolled around, problems started to emerge for the company.
De Beers came under increasing scrutiny as the anti-apartheid movement gained momentum in Europe and the United States. Reports of its working conditions were shocking: low pay for mineworkers, minimum safety training and crowded dormitory housing surrounded by barbed wire and security checkpoints. This negative publicity put De Beers firmly in the spotlight as one of the prime beneficiaries of apartheid.
De Beers had already fought off allegations of “cartel behaviour” from the US Department of Justice. But in 1994, the company was indicted by a US grand jury on price-fixing charges. The company was barred from doing business in the US, where its executives could no longer set foot for fear of arrest.
In the late 1990s, reports that the diamond trade was financing brutal civil wars in Angola, Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo further soured consumer sentiment.
Rebel groups targeted “alluvial” diamond mines – relatively easy-to-extract surface deposits, often in riverbeds – selling stones into the informal “grey” market and using the profits to buy weapons. The phrase “blood diamonds” entered the lexicon as investigative articles depicted enslaved children with pickaxes and shovels. De Beers was accused of turning a blind eye, if not outright complicity. The company’s sales declined more than 20 percent in two years, from about $5.7bn in 1999 to $4.45bn in 2001, with other diamond suppliers such as Angola’s Endiama and Russia’s Alrosa equally affected.
But since the early 1990s, changes had been afoot at De Beers. Facing pressure from South Africa’s newly elected African National Congress (ANC), it had introduced better conditions and wages for its mainly Black mineworkers. At the same time, Black South Africans also began to occupy some management roles.
Meanwhile, the US indictment meant the company had no choice but to terminate its CSO in 2000, ushering in competition from other producers. Diamond prices, no longer set and dictated by the CSO, became more volatile, subject to fluctuating demand, economic cycles, and geopolitical conditions.
To counter the blood diamond backlash, De Beers helped implement the “Kimberley Process” in 2003, through which diamond dealers can trace the origin of diamonds and authenticate “clean’’ diamonds with a microscopic stamp.
A salesperson shows a diamond ring to a prospective buyer at a jewellery shop in Ahmedabad, India, on April 14, 2025 [Ajit Solanki/AP Photo]
Not forever?
Today, natural diamonds may have lost some of their allure with the rise of “lab-grown” stones and “diamond simulants” such as cubic zirconia, which are up to 90 percent cheaper than the mined variety and often distinguishable from the real thing only by experts using specialised equipment.
Over the past two years, the diamond industry has been hit by a “perfect storm” of cheaper synthetic stones, weak consumer demand in the US and China, sanctions against Russia and, more recently, high US tariffs. This has had a widespread adverse impact: the Antwerp World Diamond Centre (AWDC) reported that rough diamond imports dropped 35 percent in 2024, with overall trade declining by 25 percent year-on-year (from $32.5bn to $24.4bn) – and in the Indian gem processing hub of Surat, at least 50,000 diamond workers were rendered jobless in 2024. At least 80 diamond workers in India have died by suicide in the past two years.
In 2011, the Oppenheimer family sold its interest in De Beers to the London-based mining corporation Anglo American, another major shareholder, for just over $5bn. De Beers is now once more up for sale, again with a $5bn price tag, as Anglo American seeks to exit the declining diamond market in favour of copper, iron ore and rare earth minerals.
Despite the volatile market conditions, total global consumer diamond sales were valued at approximately $100bn in 2024, with the average price of $6,750 for a diamond ring in the US, according to the Natural Diamond Council – about 1.3 months’ standard wage in the United States, but about eight months’ worth of the global median income. For those of greater means, London’s Harrods reportedly has a 228.31 carat, pear-shaped diamond available to view by private appointment – with a price estimated to be in excess of $30m.
This article is part of “Ordinary items, extraordinary stories”, a series about the surprising stories behind well-known items.
St Lucia’s Olympic champion Julien Alfred wins the women’s 100m at the Diamond League Final in Zurich as Jamaica’s Tia Clayton comes second and Britain’s Dina Asher-Smith third.
For Kalpesh Patel, Diwali, the festival of lights celebrated across India, might well mark lights out for his eight-year-old diamond cutting and polishing unit.
The 35-year-old employs about 40 workers who transform rough diamonds into perfectly polished gems for exports at the small factory in Surat, a city located in the western Indian state of Gujarat.
His business has survived multiple speed bumps in recent years. But United States President Donald Trump’s mammoth 50 percent tariffs on imports from India might be the final nail in the coffin for his unit, part of an already struggling natural diamond industry, he said.
“We still have some orders for Diwali and will try to complete them,” he told Al Jazeera.
Diwali, arguably India’s single biggest festival, scheduled for late October this year, usually sees domestic sales of most goods soar. “But we might have to shut the business even before the festival, as exporters might cancel the orders due to high tariffs in the US,” Patesh said.
“It is becoming increasingly difficult to pay the salaries and maintain other expenses with falling orders.”
He is among the 20,000-odd small and medium traders in Surat, known as the “Diamond City of India”, which together cut and polish 14 out of every 15 natural diamonds produced globally.
The US is their single largest export market. According to the Gem and Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC), India’s apex body for the industry, the country exported cut and polished gems worth $4.8bn to the US in the 2024-25 financial year, which ended in March. That is more than one-third of India’s total exports of cut and polished diamonds, at $13.2bn over the same period.
Dimpal Shah, a Kolkata-based diamond exporter, told Al Jazeera that orders have already started getting cancelled. “Buyers in the US are refusing to offload the shipped products, citing high tariffs. This is the worst phase of my two-decade-old career in diamonds.”
Kalpesh Patel, who runs a diamond cutting and polishing business in Surat, Gujarat, fears that he may not be able to continue his business for long, because of US tariffs on Indian imports [Photo courtesy of Kalpesh Patel]
US imposes penalty
A 25 percent reciprocal tariff on all Indian goods, which Trump announced on April 2, came into effect on August 7, after talks between the two countries failed to yield a trade deal by then. Negotiations are continuing.
Meanwhile, on August 6, Trump announced an additional 25 percent tariff, taking the total tariff rate to 50 percent. He termed the additional tariff that would come into effect from August 27 as a penalty for India’s continued buying of Russian oil, as the US president tries to push Moscow into accepting a ceasefire in Ukraine.
For the gems industry, which already faced a pre-existing 2.1 percent tariff, the effective tariff now amounts to 52.1 percent.
Ajay Srivastava, the founder of Global Research Trade Initiative (GTRI), a trade research group, termed the Trump government’s additional hike as an act of “hypocrisy”, citing how the US itself continues to trade with Russia, and how China – Russia’s biggest oil buyer – faces no similar penalty.
“Trump is targeting India out of frustration as it refused to toe the US line on the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and for its refusal to open its agriculture and dairy sector,” he added, referring to broader ongoing trade talks and differences over US demands for greater access to critical Indian economic sectors.
Yet, whatever the reasons for Trump’s tariffs, they are hurting a diamond industry already bleeding from multiple hits.
India supplies almost all of the world’s cut and polished diamonds, produced in small units across the state of Gujarat [Photo courtesy Ramesh Zilriya, president of the state’s Diamond Workers Association]
Diamond sector badly hit
More than 2 million people are employed in diamond polishing and cutting units in Surat, Ahmedabad and Rajkot cities in Gujarat — and many have already suffered salary cuts in recent years, first because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and then Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
“The pandemic led to economic slowdown affecting the international markets in Hong Kong and China,” Ramesh Zilriya, the president of Gujarat’s Diamond Workers Union, told Al Jazeera. The “Western ban on rough diamond imports from Russia due to the Russia-Ukraine war and the G7 ban on Russia also affected our business”, he added.
Russia has historically been a major source of raw diamonds.
Zilriya claimed that 80 diamond workers have died by suicide over the past two years because of this economic crisis.
“The situation in the international market led to the wages of the workers getting halved to approximately 15,000-17,000 rupees ($194) per month, which made survival difficult in the face of rising inflation,” he said.
Once the Trump tariffs fully kick in, Zilriya fears that up to 200,000 people in Gujarat may lose their livelihoods.
Already, more than 120,000 former diamond sector workers have applied for benefits. A 13,500-rupee ($154) allowance per child, to support their families, was promised in May by the state government to those who have lost jobs due to the tumult in the sector in recent years.
But the tariffs, pandemic and war are not alone to blame for the crisis: Lab-grown diamonds are also slowly eating into the market of their natural counterparts.
“Unlike natural [diamonds], the lab-grown diamonds are not mined but manufactured in specialised laboratories and priced at just 10 percent of the natural ones. It is difficult even for a seasoned jeweller to identify the natural and lab-grown with a naked eye. The taste of consumers is now shifting to lab-grown [diamonds], as they are cheap,” said Salim Daginawala, the president of the Surat Jewellers Association.
A worker checks the polishing of a lab-grown diamond in Surat, India, Monday, February 5, 2024 [Ajit Solanki/AP Photo]
Decline in exports
In the 2024-25 financial year, India imported rough diamonds worth $10.8bn, marking a 24.27 percent decline from the $14bn imported in 2023-24, as per the statistics by the GJEPC.
The exports of cut and polished natural diamonds similarly witnessed a 16.75 percent decline, with exports declining to $13.2bn in 2024-25 as compared with $16bn in the preceding year.
“This move [the tariffs] would have far-reaching repercussions on the Indian economy that might disrupt critical supply chains, stalling exports and threatening thousands of livelihoods. We hope to get a favourable reduction in tariffs; otherwise, it would be difficult to survive,” said Kirit Bhansali, the chairman of the GJEPC.
The tariffs could also hurt US jewellers, warned Rajesh Rokde, the chairman of the All India Gems and Jewellery Domestic Council (GJC), a national trade federation for the industry.
“The US has around 70,000 jewellers who would also face a crisis if the jewellery becomes expensive,” Rokde added.
A salesperson shows a diamond ring to a prospective buyer at a jewellery shop in Ahmedabad, India, on April 14, 2025 [Ajit Solanki/AP Photo]
A domestic solution?
Traders say that the need of the hour is to increase domestic demand for diamonds and diversify to new markets.
A stronger domestic market “would not only contribute to the local economy, but would also create jobs for several thousands of people”, said Radha Krishna Agrawal, the director of Narayan das Saraf Jewellers in Varanasi city, in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.
The tariffs, he said, could prove a “blessing in disguise” if they end up reducing the dependence of India’s gems industry “on other countries”.
Bhansali said that the domestic gems and jewellery market was growing, and expected to reach $130bn in the next two years, up from $85bn at the moment. The industry is also looking for new markets, including Latin America and the Middle East.
Gold already offers an example of a strong domestic market, cushioning the impact of hits on exports, said Amit Korat, the president of the Surat Jewellery Manufacturers Association.
But for now, the diamond sector in India has no such shield. It needs to be saved, urgently, said Patel, the Surat business owner on the cusp of shutting down his polishing and cutting unit.
Without help, he said, “the business will lose its shine forever”.
![Gujarat [Photo courtesy Ramesh Zilriya, president of the state's Diamond Workers Association]](https://www.occasionaldigest.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/IMG-20250805-WA0035-1755048666.jpg)
