Rubio to Visit India but Skip New Delhi, Sparking Political Controversy
Nils Adler, Al Jazeera English
Secretary of State Marco Rubio will visit India next week but skip New Delhi, meeting Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar in Mumbai and touring Reliance's Jamnagar refinery instead. The unusual itinerary, coupled with a US ambassador's remark that New Delhi officials were expected to travel to Mumbai, has drawn sharp criticism from India's opposition and added to strains over tariffs and Russian oil.
According to the US State Department, Secretary of State Marco Rubio will arrive in India on Sunday after leaving Samarkand, Uzbekistan, where he attended the C5+1 summit with five Central Asian nations. During the visit, he will hold talks with Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar in Mumbai — India's financial hub — on Monday, then travel to the Jamnagar refinery in Gujarat state.
The State Department said discussions in Mumbai will focus on the US-India strategic partnership, energy cooperation, trade, investment, defense and emerging technologies. Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal confirmed the agenda. In Jamnagar, Rubio is expected to visit the world's largest refinery, operated by billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries, and attend a reception hosted by the Ambani family.
Why Rubio is not going to New Delhi
No official reason has been given for Rubio skipping the capital. In May, he visited New Delhi for a meeting of foreign ministers of the Quad group (the US, India, Japan and Australia).
The State Department is framing this visit around energy and investment, with Jamnagar one of the world's most important energy hubs. The trip comes as fuel prices weigh on the US ahead of next month's midterm elections.
Reliance — a conglomerate spanning energy, retail and telecom — also sits at the center of Washington's oil diplomacy. According to Business Standard, the Jamnagar stop matters because Reliance is the largest buyer of Venezuelan crude outside the US, as Washington pushes India to buy more oil from the South American country. Since US forces detained Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in January and took control of the country's oil industry, the US government has been actively marketing Venezuelan oil to foreign customers.
Reliance is also investing in a new refinery in Texas — the first built in the US in 50 years — which President Trump touted as a $300 billion deal when he announced it in March.
US ambassador's remarks spark controversy
Speaking at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in New Delhi on Thursday, US Ambassador to India Sergio Gor said Rubio would meet Indian government officials in Mumbai, and that Washington "expects" Jaishankar and officials from New Delhi to travel there to meet him.
Earlier in the week, Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Jaiswal had not confirmed the trip or explained why Rubio was skipping New Delhi, saying only that the government would announce details "at the appropriate time."
The ambassador's remarks drew a wave of criticism from opposition leaders. Jairam Ramesh, general secretary of the opposition Congress party, wrote on X that the ambassador's statement was "highly unusual." Opposition leader in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi commented that Rubio had "summoned his staff to Mumbai."
Congress MP Pawan Khera went further: "A foreign government summoning India's foreign minister on Indian soil is a new low, even by the standards of the Modi administration," he wrote on X, referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
US-India ties strained over tariffs and Russian oil
Bilateral relations are under pressure mainly from President Trump's tariffs and the Russian oil issue. Last August, after a round of trade talks collapsed, the US imposed a 50% tariff on most Indian goods. Under a framework agreed in February, that rate was cut to 18%. However, subsequent negotiations have stalled.
This month, Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the talks had "slowed." On Thursday, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said the "first part" of the deal was in its final stages but that India would not sign until its exporters had a competitive advantage over rivals such as Bangladesh, Vietnam and Indonesia.
Other friction points have also emerged. Last week, US Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling announced that his department had suspended eight companies — including leading Indian IT firms Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro and HCL — from a labor certification program that is a key step for employers seeking green cards for foreign workers.
According to Sameer Lalwani, an expert with the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Indian public opinion of the US has fallen to a record low, driven by US moves toward Pakistan and the US-Israel war with Iran, which he said have pushed India back toward Russian oil. However, he argued that defense and technology cooperation remains quietly deeper, and bilateral trade rose nearly 12% in 2025 to almost $240 billion. According to him, "perceptions of the political relationship have deteriorated faster than its strategic foundation."
A sanctions law had threatened to make matters worse. Last month, President Trump signed the Lindsey O. Graham Russia and Iran Sanctions Act, which could impose tariffs of up to 100% on goods from the five countries that import the most Russian oil or gas. India — one of the world's largest buyers of Russian oil — has warned Washington that the new tariffs could harm bilateral relations. On Friday, President Trump signed an executive order to waive the sanctions, in an effort to cool oil prices ahead of the US election on November 3.
