When the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, visited India for the second time this year, headlines concentrated on who he met and where he went. The fact that Rubio bypassed New Delhi and did not meet the prime minister, Narendra Modi, during his trip last week, and instead traveled to the financial capital, Mumbai, where he met India’s foreign minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar (pictured top with Rubio), and business leaders, did not go unnoticed. Nor did his decision to travel to Jamnagar, the small Gujarati town that is home to Reliance Industries’ colossal oil refinery complex.
Bilateral ties between the two countries have come under strain under the second Trump administration, particularly over tariffs and India’s purchase of Russian oil. Yet, Rubio’s return to India just five months after his first visit as secretary of state signals that the country remains useful for president Donald Trump’s ambitions after all. As director of the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Milan Vaishnav has spent a decade tracking India’s place in the world, particularly its ties with the US.
Vaishnav has described Trump 2.0 as “unbound” marking a new era in India-US relations. Tracking foreign affairs, he told me, is a minefield right now. From the White House’s transactional approach to global alliances, ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and consequential elections around the world, politics is changing at a pace that means all predictions are off the table.
I asked him about the many confusing aspects of the US-India relationship, from the hostile political rhetoric to the US embrace of Pakistan, as well as Rubio’s latest visit. Ahead of Rubio’s visit, several commentators noted the secretary of state’s “unusual” itinerary. Vaishnav thought the pre-visit chatter about Rubio skipping Delhi to visit Mumbai and Jamnagar was overblown.
But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t noteworthy. This administration and, particularly, this president, sees foreign policy through the lens of ‘deal-making’. And if you’re trying to drum up business deals, what better place to visit than Mumbai?” he says.
The Jamnagar visit, where Rubio met Mukesh Ambani, the chair of Reliance, also indicates some politicking. India is a major consumer of oil, but it is also a major exporter of refined petroleum products,” says Vaishnav. While this could present an opportunity for India to advance relations, it’s not a given: the US president remains, after all – and to put it lightly – mercurial.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
