Washington: The recent visit of US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, to India followed a challenging phase in India-US ties marked by tariff tensions, renewed American engagement with Pakistan, ambiguity over Washington’s China policy and concerns regarding the Quad’s waning political urgency.
While Rubio’s India visit concluded with the language of momentum, the subtext was repair. Officially, Washington and New Delhi projected the trip around the Quad – the four-nation grouping of India, the United States, Japan and Australia. The foreign ministers gathered in New Delhi to deepen cooperation on the Indo-Pacific, maritime security, critical minerals, energy security and supply chains, a report highlighted.
Speaking to leading American magazine Newsweek, former Indian High Commissioner Ajay Bisaria said Rubio’s visit was “partially also a damage control visit”. He said it was “overdue” because “some signals of reassurance politically of reassurance from the US were required.”
Ahead of the Quad meeting, Rubio called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with the PM’s office stating that the US State Secretary briefed PM Modi on “sustained progress in bilateral cooperation across a wide range of sectors, including defence, strategic technologies, trade and investment, energy security, connectivity, education and people-to-people ties.”
The statement added that Rubio conveyed the US perspective on regional and global issues, “including the situation in West Asia”, while PM Modi reiterated India’s commitment to peace efforts and “peaceful resolution of the conflicts through dialogue and diplomacy”.
Reiterating India’s significance to American strategy, following the Quad meeting, Rubio said, “We are deeply committed to this partnership. It is a linchpin and a cornerstone of our global strategy as a nation.”
Emphasising New Delhi’s concerns over Washington’s predictability, Bisaria said the ties experienced a “bad dream” period from August until February due to the tariffs imposed by the US President Donald Trump administration.
“The way I look at the 16-month Trump period is that we went through a bad dream from August till February of the Trump tariffs. Once those tariffs were rolled back, things began to get better,” Newsweek quoted Bisaria as saying.
Stressing that the second irritant factor in India-US ties was Pakistan, he further said, “Particularly after Operation Sindoor, this is a matter of concern in India.” He added that New Delhi believed Washington had grown “insensitive to India’s concerns about the perpetrators of that terrorism.”
Bisaria argued that the Trump administration’s policy towards Pakistan reflected “transactional calculation” rather than “strategic conviction”.
“It was being insensitive to India’s concerns about the perpetrators of that terrorism and whatever transactional deal due to critical minerals, crypto and counter-terrorism. This particular administration has been framing not just Pakistan, but other relationships, very transactionally,” he added.
(IANS)
