Stage is all set for Marco Rubio's visit to India. Unlike the past; there is less of optimism and there is more cautiousness.
The US has itself to blame; and India may find its new stance fully justified.
When the US Secretary of State visits India on May 23–26, he will find New Delhi's foreign policy engine room and even analysts outside more wary of the United States than at any other time this century.
Why?
A poll in January 2026 by the magazine 'India Today' found that 54 percent of Indians felt that India’s relations with the United States have worsened under Donald Trump.
Before Vice Prez J D Vance’s trip to India in April 2025, PM Narendra Modi had visited President Donald Trump in the White House in February (2025).
Modi was only the second Asian leader to do so in the president’s second term after Japan’s former Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru.
With his characteristic optimism and love of slogans, PM Modi had even declared that MAGA (Make America Great Again) and MIGA (Make India Great Again) would together result in a “mega partnership for prosperity.” But all these now appear a thing of past.
In an interview with a website last year, former Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran declared that “the twenty-five-year upward trajectory of India–U.S. relations has certainly plateaued, if not started declining.”
In early 2026, Nirupama Rao, another former Indian foreign secretary, and a former Indian ambassador to the United States and China, wrote about a new U.S. approach to India that “has become noticeably harder, more transactional, and less insulated by the rhetoric of partnership that characterised earlier phases of the relationship.”
Why Marco Rubio will have to be in 'repair mode'? He has to ask Donald Trump. In May 2025 and later all along; Trump kept making Indians angry and 'embarrassed Modi' by repeatedly taking credit for ending a four-day conflict between India and Pakistan vis-a-vis Operation Sindoor.
India could not accept this line vecause New Delhi’s official position of dealing with Pakistan in strictly bilateral.
The US President should have displayed the sensibility.
Trump also imposed a 50 percent import tariff on India, among the highest in the world, which included a 25 percent tariff as punishment for India’s purchase of Russian oil.
No such punitive tariff on Russian oil purchases was applied to China, another large Russian customer.
The tariff rate was to be brought down to 18 percent under a tentative trade deal announced in February before the U.S. Supreme Court scrapped the tariffs that had been authorized under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
All this means that Rubio has his work cut out. In addition to attending the Quad gathering, the secretary of state is scheduled to meet with Modi, Foreign Minister Dr S Jaishankar, and National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval.
He will also visit Agra, Jaipur, and Kolkata.
The bilateral agenda will span defense, economics, and technology, among other issues.
US envoy Sergio Gor said Secretary of State Marco Rubio's maiden India visit would combine bilateral talks, the Quad meeting, and travels to experience the incredible culture of the country. He added the unusually long trip reflected Washington's focus on closer ties and concrete outcomes with India.
India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have a friend in the Oval Office, US envoy Sergio Gor told India Today a day before Secretary of State Marco Rubio's maiden visit to the country.
Sergio Gor stressed that the message from US President Donald Trump is simple: Washington wants to work even closer with New Delhi.
"The President, as you know, as I've often said, holds the Prime Minister in very high regard. And the message will be clear: the United States and India are natural partners, and that's something we hope to build upon," Gor said.
The US Ambassador said that he spoke with Trump two days before and the President firmly said that he wants, after the meeting, both sides to work together seamlessly. "What he wants to see come out of this trip is our two sides working hand-in-hand and identifying those win-win situations for both of our countries."
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