On first official India trip, Rubio tries to halt a trust deficit between Washington and Delhi

NEW DELHI– US Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks with his Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar on Sunday as the two countries seek to stabilize ties that have fallen to their lowest level in more than two decades.

Rubio’s visit comes amid an economic and diplomatic slowdown between the United States and India, largely strained by US President Donald Trump’s tariff policies, which increased tariffs on several Indian exports.

Rubio arrived on Saturday for his first official visit to India ahead of a meeting scheduled for Tuesday with his counterparts from India, Australia and Japan, members of the Indo-Pacific strategic alliance known as the Quad.

“India is the cornerstone of how the United States approaches the Indo-Pacific region, and not just through the Quad, but bilaterally,” Rubio said in New Delhi.

His four-day visit will include a multi-city tour and a gala reception in New Delhi marking the 250th anniversary of American independence.

“Over the past year, Washington’s statements and rhetoric on some of India’s most sensitive security and trade concerns have been unhelpful and have created a trust deficit,” said Ashok Malik, a former policy adviser at India’s foreign ministry.

“Some fears will persist,” Malik added, emphasizing that Rubio’s visit will be considered a success if the talks somewhat stabilize relations and prevent further deterioration.

Experts say there is friction between the United States’ global strategic ambitions and India’s priorities as an emerging middle power. Historically close to Russia, India has long expressed unease as it draws closer to the United States, reflecting India’s lingering distrust of American intentions, rooted in cultural differences and Cold War-era instincts.

Yet ties between India and the United States have gradually deepened over two decades into a broad and robust strategic partnership, increasingly shaped in recent years by shared concerns about China’s growing assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific and articulated diplomatically through the Quad forum.

The Quad has repeatedly accused China of flexing its military muscles in the South China Sea and aggressively asserting its maritime territorial claims. Beijing maintains its military is purely defensive to protect what it sees as China’s sovereign rights and characterizes the Quad as an attempt to contain its economic growth and influence.

After the U.S. presidential inauguration in January 2025, Rubio’s first formal international engagement was to meet with the foreign ministers of the Quad countries jointly and in separate sessions.

However, a series of events since last year have put diplomatic relations at an all-time low.

Despite close ties and often seen as ideological allies, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has downplayed Trump’s role in brokering a ceasefire after a brief India-Pakistan military conflict sparked by the April 2025 massacre of mostly Hindu tourists in Indian-controlled Kashmir. But Pakistan openly courted Trump and even advocated the Nobel Peace Prize for him.

Economic tensions followed, with the Trump administration imposing tariffs on India on its discounted purchases of Russian oil, further straining ties between the two countries.

“In India, there is some skepticism about American policy and its predictability,” said Malik, who heads the India chapter of consultancy The Asia Group in the United States. He said what happened last year between India and the United States “cannot be forgotten or erased easily.”

When the war with Iran broke out in February, the United States intensified its relations with Pakistan, which positioned itself as a mediator between Washington and Tehran, thereby deepening unease in New Delhi. Trump’s recent high-profile visit to China has only added to India’s unease.

India-US relations are difficult “because of some structural tensions and Trump has only brought them to the forefront,” said Praveen Donthi, senior analyst at the International Crisis Group.

“New Delhi’s foreign policy, increasingly influenced by its domestic politics, has become more black and white over the past decade, as evidenced by its deep unease with the United States’ ties with Pakistan and its moves toward détente with China,” Donthi said.

Experts say these changes reflect the growing complexity of India-US relations, rooted in shared strategic interests but increasingly shaped by competing priorities and a changing geopolitical landscape.

“New Delhi will likely exercise strategic patience and wait for Trump to leave office,” Donthi said. “India hopes that the bipartisan consensus on India in the United States will survive his tenure and that it can start building on that again.”

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Hussain reported from Srinagar, India.