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 ۲.۰ 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 think anyone who tells you they know exactly what is going on and how it fits into their neat theory of the world is lying to you,” says Vaishnav.
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.
Trump the deal-maker
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. “Not every bilateral meeting has to take place in a national capital,” he says.
But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t noteworthy. “I do think the choice of venues was intentional. 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. “At a time when petrol prices are extremely high in the United States and are likely to be a major issue in the ۳ November midterm elections, the administration wants to show that it is doing everything it can to bring them down. India is a major consumer of oil, but it is also a major exporter of refined petroleum products,” says Vaishnav. “One of Rubio’s objectives was to encourage Reliance and, by extension, India to process more Venezuelan crude [oil],” he added.
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.
“The biggest plot twist for me has been the Trump administration’s embrace of Pakistan after the May ۲۰۲۵ conflict with India,” says Vaishnav. Pakistan’s standing in Washington had eroded over the years, especially under Joe Biden, who left office without ever having made a presidential phone call to his counterpart in Pakistan. “Many officials in Congress had grown exhausted with Pakistan’s double game, speaking the language of partnership on the one hand while undermining US interests on the other,” says Vaishnav.
But, after coming to power the second time, Trump thanked the country for its help in nabbing a suspect linked to a ۲۰۲۱ bombing in Afghanistan that killed ۱۳ US service members. This reversal in Pakistan’s fortunes gathered pace after the May conflict with India, which Trump took credit for ending. In June, he welcomed Asim Munir, Pakistan’s army chief, to the White House, after Munir called for the president to be nominated for the Nobel peace prize.
“I chalk up the reversal to a few factors: Trump’s well-known strongman envy, Pakistan’s savvy diplomacy, and the prospect of energy and crypto deals involving members of Trump’s inner circle,” says Vaishnav. For him, it isyet another demonstration of how much weight Trump places on deals, transactions and short-term wins. “For New Delhi, this means Modi’s personal rapport with Trump and ۲۵ years of investment in the bilateral relationship offer no guarantee against a ۱۸۰-degree reversal in US policy,” he adds.
In a recent piece, Vaishnav’s colleague Sameer Lalwani pointed out that the US relationship with India remains more resilient than the political rhetoric may suggest with quiet, but nonetheless strategic, progress being made.
As Lalwani points out, bilateral trade reached a record high between India and the US in ۲۰۲۵; nearly $۶۸bn worth of AI infrastructure investment in India has been pledged by US technology companies; and the two countries have carried out record number of joint military exercises this year.
The way forward
Despite these wins, in terms of future bilateral relations, “there are at least three reasons for caution,” warns Vaishnav. First, he points to the onslaught of US actions that have dented Indian interests. Trump had imposed a punitive ۵۰% tariff on India in ۲۰۲۵, which was reduced to ۱۸% earlier this year, but without a comprehensive trade deal being reached. Second, on immigration, the White House’s H-۱B visa and green card restrictions have disproportionately affected Indian workers in Silicon Valley.
“This has created a real trust deficit on the Indian side, and with good reason,” says Vaishnav. The frustration was on display earlier this month, when New Delhi branded remarks made by the US vice-president, JD Vance, about Indian professionals as “deeply offensive”. Furthermore, Vaishnav argues that while governments and private sector firms might be great at making announcements, they’re not always a guarantee of delivery.
His final caution is how political tensions can have a chilling effect. The trade negotiations offer a telling example: in January, the US commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, blamed the lack of a trade deal on Modi’s failure to phone Trump, a characterisation that New Delhi has disputed. Vaishnav says: “Much of the progress we are seeing is the product of decisions made years ago. It is one thing to keep existing projects moving, but turbulence in the relationship could make new initiatives a heavier lift.”
If India is serious about making its ambition to be a global powerhouse a reality, Vaishnav thinks there’s a clearcut way to win. “I would argue that the most important investment is political – ensuring India remains a robust, inclusive, participatory democracy,” he says. “On the economic front, India has made massive new investments in physical and digital infrastructure. But the returns on those investments will be limited unless the government doubles down on reforms: more efficient dispute resolution, an impartial legal system, even-handed tax enforcementand regulatory certainty.”
Ultimately, neither side can afford to treat the other as expendable. The test now is whether strategic foundations can hold at a time of global political upheaval.
What else we’re reading about
Student protests | Bikaner House, one of Delhi’s premier arts venues, asked visual artist Raihan Vadra to remove from his show more than ۷۰ photographs that featured recent student protests. Vadra, the son of the Congress leader, Priyanka Gandhi, defended his work and also refused a request to remove images featuring the national flag. In a press statement, the venue said certain photos were “inconsistent” with its policy.
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Fashion | Designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee, celebrated for his maximalist aesthetic, hosted a Diwali party at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. In September, he unveiled a high-jewellery collection inspired by the Byzantine, in collaboration with the museum.
Air pollution | Emergency measures, including a ban on coal-fired tandoors in restaurants and restrictions on diesel generators, have come into effect in Delhi, as air quality dropped to the poor category at the onset of the annual pollution season.
Guest shelf
A recommendation from someone with great taste
Film-maker Ritu Sarin, director of the annual Dharamshala international film festival, which runs from ۲۹ October to ۱ November, suggests a film from this year’s lineup:
“Shot over three years on real locations, Anmol Sidhu’s sophomore feature, Flowers of Acacia, follows wedding orchestra dancers in rural Punjab with a gaze that allows all the large brutalities and smaller intimacies to shine through. Sidhu’s confident, consummate grasp of the medium is on full display in terrifying scenes that stretch to the edge of what is palatable. The camera refuses to look away.”
Count it
A number worth knowing
۷,۶۳۳
That’s the number of trees Mumbai’s municipal authorities authorised to be felled over five months this year, to make way for development works, according to the Indian Express. Of these, about ۳,۵۰۰ will be permanently removed, while the rest will be replanted elsewhere.
Vibe check
Prarthna Singh has consistently placed the female identity at the heart of her artistic practice, documenting Indian women’s aspirations and acts of rebellion in male-dominated spaces. When commissioned to photograph rkivecity’s menswear line, made from discarded clothes reworked into new garments, she turned that same gaze outward. The setting was the acclaimed ۱۵۱-year-old Mayo College boys’ school in Ajmer, Rajasthan – Singh attended the linked girls’ school, and credits it with shaping her rebellious spirit.
“I was thinking about how I could bring a sense of intimacy and camaraderie of boarding-school life to the images, because that exists,” she told me. One image shows a pair of hands holding another boy’s jacket, the faces left out of the frame, so the garment stands in for the familiarity they share. Seeing this work against the backdrop of students taking to the streets to fight for their rights lends the series a lasting significance. “This was just my way of showing all of this is connected. These worlds are not existing separately,” said Singh.
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