Rubio arrives in India to mend ties ahead of Quad talks

Marco Rubio landed in India on Saturday and opened a four-day trip that will take him from Kolkata to Agra, Jaipur and New Delhi, where he will join allies next week for a Quad meeting that will test how much damage Washington and New Delhi can still repair.

The visit is Rubio’s first to India as U.S. secretary of state and comes with unusually high stakes. The Quad foreign ministers are scheduled to meet in New Delhi on May 26 at the invitation of Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, with Japan’s Toshimitsu Motegi and Australia’s Penny Wong also expected to take part. Japan’s foreign ministry said Motegi will be in India for three days starting Monday to attend the talks.

The meeting is expected to focus on the Indo-Pacific, supply-chain resilience, critical minerals, trade, energy security, defense cooperation and regional security. Those are familiar Quad themes, but the diplomatic mood around them has sharpened. India and the United States have been at odds over trade pressure from President Donald Trump’s tariffs, while Washington’s renewed outreach to Pakistan and China has added to New Delhi’s concerns about how reliable the partnership really is.

Rubio’s trip is meant to steady that relationship before the Quad sits down in New Delhi. The grouping, made up of the United States, India, Japan and Australia, has been cast in Washington as a central platform for balancing China’s influence across the Indo-Pacific. Yet the forum’s practical value depends on whether the four governments can move beyond broad statements and settle on concrete cooperation in areas such as semiconductor supply chains, critical minerals, maritime security and defense coordination.

India’s purchases of Russian oil remain another major point of friction. U.S. and Indian officials have publicly disagreed over whether New Delhi promised to stop buying oil from Vladimir Putin’s Russia, and the issue has become a symbol of the broader strain in the relationship. For Washington, the test is whether India can be drawn closer without being pushed away by tariffs and public pressure. For New Delhi, the question is whether the United States can treat India as a strategic partner rather than simply another target for demands.

Rubio’s stops across India are intended to project warmth as much as purpose, but the real measure of the trip will come in New Delhi. If the two sides can narrow differences on trade, Russia and China, the Quad may still function as a working strategic partnership. If not, it risks remaining what critics have long warned it could become: a polished diplomatic photo opportunity with limited strategic payoff.