US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will visit India next week, but will not set foot in the capital, New Delhi. Instead, on Monday, Rubio will hold talks with Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar in Mumbai, India’s financial center, and then visit an oil refinery in Jamnagar, in the western state of Gujarat, according to a statement from the US State Department. Recommended stories list of 4 articlesend of listHis itinerary sparked a political storm after the US ambassador to India said Washington expected Jaishankar to travel to meet Rubio, prompting opposition leaders to accuse the government of allowing India’s top diplomat to be “summoned” on its soil. The dispute comes as relations between the two countries are strained over trade, tariffs and India’s purchases of Russian oil. So why is Rubio avoiding New Delhi and why has he caused so much unrest? Here’s what you need to know: What is Rubio doing in India? He plans to discuss trade, energy and investment. Rubio will arrive on Sunday from Samarkand, Uzbekistan, where he has been meeting with five Central Asian states at the C5+1 summit. In India, he will meet with senior officials to discuss the US-India strategic partnership and energy cooperation and hold talks with business leaders, the State Department said. Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal appeared to confirm the agenda. stating on Friday that the Mumbai talks would cover energy, trade and investment, defense and critical and emerging technologies. In Jamnagar, Rubio will visit the world’s largest single-site refinery, operated by billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries, and attend a reception hosted by the Ambani family, according to The Hindu newspaper. Rubio and his wife, Jeanette Rubio, appear with Ambassador to India Sergio Gor, also the US special envoy to South and Central Asia, at the Taj Mahal. in Agra, India, on May 25, 2026 [Julia Demaree Nikhinson/Pool via Reuters]Why doesn’t Rubio go to New Delhi? No official reason has been given. Rubio was in the Indian capital in May for a meeting of foreign ministers from the Quad countries, a group made up of the US, India, Japan and Australia. The State Department has framed its upcoming trip around energy and investment, and the second stop of Rubio’s visit to India, Jamnagar, is one of the world’s most important energy centers. Elections. Reliance, an energy, retail and telecommunications conglomerate, is also at the center of Washington’s broader oil diplomacy. Business Standard, an Indian financial daily, said the stop in Jamnagar was significant because Reliance is the biggest buyer of Venezuelan crude oil besides the United States at a time when Washington has been urging India to buy more. abroad. Reliance is also investing in a new refinery in Texas, the first to be built in the United States in 50 years, which Trump hailed as a $300 billion deal when he announced it in March, Business Standard reported. Villagers sit outside the Jamnagar refinery, run by Indian business conglomerate Reliance Industries, in Jamnagar, India. [File: Manish Swarup/AP]What did the US ambassador say and why has it caused unrest? Speaking at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in New Delhi on Thursday, US Ambassador to India Sergio Gor said Rubio would meet Indian government officials in Mumbai, and that Washington “hoped” Jaishankar and others from New Delhi would travel there to see him. Jairam Ramesh, general secretary of the opposition Indian National Congress party, wrote in X that the ambassador’s statement was “quite extraordinary.” Rahul Gandhi, leader of the opposition in the lower house of parliament, also took to X for comment, writing on Friday that Rubio had “summoned his employee to Mumbai.” Congress MP Pawan Khera went further. “For a foreign government to summon India’s foreign minister on Indian soil is a new low, even by the Modi government’s standards,” he wrote in However, under a framework the two sides agreed to in February, that rate fell to 18 percent. Since then, negotiations have stalled. This month, Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said talks had “stabilized,” according to The Hindu. On Thursday, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said the “first tranche” of a deal was in its final stages, but that India would not sign until its exporters had an advantage over rivals such as Bangladesh, Vietnam and Indonesia, according to Reuters news agency. Points of friction have arisen. Last week, US Secretary of Labor Keith Sonderling announced that his department was suspending eight companies – including Indian IT giants Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro and HCL – from a labor certification scheme that is a key step for employers seeking green cards for their foreign staff. with Pakistan and the US-Israel war against Iran, which he claimed had pushed India to turn again to Russian oil. Despite this, he argued, defense and technology cooperation has quietly deepened, with bilateral trade growing almost 12 percent in 2025, to almost $240 billion. In his opinion, “perceptions of the political relationship have deteriorated faster than its strategic foundations.” India, one of the world’s largest buyers of Russian oil, had warned Washington that the new tariffs could damage bilateral relations. Trump on Friday signed an executive order seeking to suspend sanctions as he tries to ease high oil prices ahead of the Nov. 3 U.S. election.
