Marco Rubio will visit Mumbai and Jamnagar to discuss energy cooperation as S Jaishankar says India-US trade talks are nearing a landing point, with a few issues unresolved.
IMAGE: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar meets United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, September 23, 2026. Photograph: @DrSJaishankar X/ANI Photo
Key Points
- US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will visit Mumbai and Jamnagar to strengthen bilateral energy cooperation.
- Rubio will meet External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and other senior government officials in Mumbai during his India visit.
- Reliance Industries’ Jamnagar refinery is significant as the company remains a major purchaser of Venezuelan crude oil outside the US.
- Jaishankar said India-US trade negotiations are approaching a landing point, although several issues remain unresolved between the two countries.
- India and Canada aim to sign a comprehensive economic partnership agreement by year-end, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi likely to visit Canada in December.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will travel to India next week, visiting the financial hub Mumbai and Gujarat’s Jamnagar, home to Reliance Industries Limited’s crude oil refinery.
The visit comes as the Donald Trump administration pushes to strengthen energy cooperation between the two countries.
This will be Rubio’s second visit to India this year. He visited Kolkata and New Delhi, where he attended the Quad foreign ministers’ meeting in May.
The official announcement of the visit came hours after External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Tuesday evening that negotiations on the India-US trade deal were heading towards a ‘landing point’.
He, however, said that a few issues still remain to be resolved.
The US state department spokesman said on Wednesday morning that Rubio will travel to Samarkand, Uzbekistan and Mumbai and Jamnagar from October 17 to 22.
In Samarkand, Rubio will meet with senior officials of all the five Central Asian Republics. He will be accompanied by over 200 business leaders.
Rubio will then proceed to India, where he will meet senior government officials, including Jaishankar in Mumbai.
According to the US state department, the discussions will focus enhancing energy cooperation.
Rubio’s visit to Jamnagar is significant in this context. Outside the US, RIL is the biggest purchaser of the Venezuelan crude oil.
The US been asking India to purchase more Venezuelan oil. In March, in a Truth Social post, Trump announced a $300 billion refinery deal with Reliance.
He announced that the US will build its first refinery in 50 years with investment from Reliance Industries. Trump said the refinery will be built in Brownsville, Texas, at a cost of $300 billion.
In Mumbai, Rubio will also meet with business leaders to promote opportunities for commercial investment and economic cooperation.
Addressing the Bloomberg New Economy Forum on Tuesday evening, Jaishankar spoke about the progress on the India-US trade deal.
‘I think we are waiting on a few things. I wouldn’t be comfortable spilling the beans in public,’ the external affairs minister said.
India-US ties face key sticking points
Earlier this month, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the talks on the trade deal have reached a ‘plateau’.
During his visit to the US in September, Jaishankar said at a discussion at the Asia Society Policy Institute in New York that the India-US ties have suffered in recent times because of Washington’s lack of understanding of India’s concerns on trade, terrorism on which it did not show empathy to India’s concerns, and mobility.
Jaishankar met Rubio in New York on September 23, where the two ‘discussed sanctions that could be levelled against States that engage economically with Russia and Iran.’
Jaishankar ‘reiterated’ India’s ‘interests and concerns’ on the Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act, while Rubio ’emphasised that the US remains well-positioned to help regional partners address their energy security challenges’.
Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri discussed bilateral ties with US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Allison Hooker on September 25 in New York, including energy security, the recently enacted SRIA, civil nuclear cooperation and the Indian Ocean Strategic Venture Initiative.
Trump and Modi held a telephonic conversation on September 30.
Modi is also slated to visit Florida in mid-December to attend the Group of 20, or G20, Summit. The White House confirmed on Wednesday that Trump will attend the East Asia Summit (EAS) in Manila, being held from November 16-18.
The PM is also likely to attend the EAS. The PM did not attend the EAS in Kuala Lumpur last year because of domestic engagements.
Speaking at the Bloomberg conclave on Tuesday, Jaishankar said that Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal, the US Trade Representative and other officials are engaged in talks to move forward on the bilateral trade pact and ironing out the rough spots.
‘My sense is that this is an issue which is heading towards a landing point,’ Jaishankar said.
On tariffs, he said, ‘The US has a fundamentally different approach to the use of tariffs. But even that is a symptom of something else. The US is today determined to re-industrialise and to reset the terms of access to its economy.’
‘That’s what the whole tariff debate is about. And the two are connected: access to the American economy and the re-industrialisation of America. Therefore, what is happening is every significant economy is getting into a negotiation with the United States on this issue,’ he said.
‘We’re not alone in this. In our case, we are pretty far advanced in that process of negotiation,’ he said.
Jaishankar said that the US is revising the terms of its alliances and treaty relationships and that the sentiment is most strongly being felt in Europe, and to some extent, in some countries in east Asia.
‘We have many issues we are working on with the US, but we don’t have an issue of the terms of alliance because we are not officially an ally. We are a country which has a strong strategic partnership with the US, but a strategic partnership is a partnership; it’s not an alliance,’ he said.
‘In our case, for the last 20-odd years, we have worked out what we felt were convergences, overlaps, shared common interests with the US, and we had agreed that we would pursue that. I don’t think that has fundamentally changed,’ he said.
Canada looks to hosting Modi in December
In an interview to Bloomberg TV, Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand, who is on a visit to India, said the two sides plan to sign the comprehensive economic partnership agreement by the end of the year.
She said Prime Minister Modi is likely to visit Canada in December. Anand held talks with Jaishankar and later called on the Prime Minister.
India and Canada aim to double their bilateral trade and strengthen cooperation in critical minerals, defence, and energy.
The two announced a $1.8 billion uranium supply deal in March.
Sources said there have been preliminary discussions between the two sides that Canadian PM Mark Carney could be the chief guest at the next year’s Republic Day parade.
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff
