AA Edit | Rubio Sets Ball Rolling On Reshaping India-US Ties

Marco Rubio has been tasked with grappling a kind of Rubik’s Cube on the US-India relationship after what was thought to be one of the most consequential West-East ties even a decade ago had become as complex as the puzzle of colourful cubes.

Charmingly optimistic as the US secretary of state was on his first official trip to India about taking a strategic partnership ahead and out of a recent bumpy path, the fact remains that it is his boss, Mr Donald Trump, who will decide if indeed the ties will go forward as envisaged.

The impression that Mr Trump effectively shot down any Indian ambition to become an influential power without quite being in the US axis has lingered. His tariffs on Indian goods were the biggest dampener on ties that may have had ups and downs, but trade was never a bone of contention before Mr Trump’s second term. India’s time-tested defence ties with Russia may be the unspoken point of contention, if not quite conflict between India and the US.

Mr Rubio’s visit, ahead of a trade delegation from the US that is scheduled to visit in June, is the prospective starting point of reshaping ties that hit a diplomatic downturn thanks to Mr Trump’s view of India that may have been coloured by India’s Operation Sindoor in May 2025 which further exposed Pakistan’s use of terror by proxy as a weapon of state.

Since then, Mr Trump favouring his “favourite” general in Pakistan — which however has been playing a positive role in mediation with Iran — has only darkened the diplomatic ties between Washington and New Delhi. India perceives a gap between US policy and performance thanks to the unpredictability factor accentuated in Mr Trump’s chimerical stance.

Mending the ties and bringing them back to a high level of strategic relationship in which India was supposed to be a balancing factor to America’s superpower rivalry with China is a daunting task, but one at which Mr Rubio has been prominent in playing a constructive role. The trust deficit with India might seem insurmountable right now, but it is a good sign that Mr Rubio has conveyed Mr Trump’s willingness to host Prime Minister Narendra Modi at an early date in the White House.

It has, however, not been all doom and gloom as trade in terms of India’s exports have not suffered as much as the posturing with threatened punitive tariffs on use of cheap Russian crude. In fact, India has been on the positive side in trade surplus even as exports remained stable at $87.3 billion in the year ending March 2026. The US goods trade deficit with India was $58.2bn in 2025, a 27.1 per cent increase on 2024. No wonder Mr Rubio acted as a salesman for US energy with India on this trip.

With a Quad meeting to be hosted by India later this year following the foreign ministers’ meeting this week, it is possible the ties will be on an upswing from here, especially if the trade agreement is signed and India also responds in terms of buying American oil.

In his meeting with the PM and external affairs minister, Mr Rubio seems to have covered much ground on the points of view of both sides, from visa issues to the choking of the Strait of Hormuz and energy and supply chain issues. The signs are propitious and progress in ties may revolve around Mr Trump opting to be consistently positive towards India.