{"id":820726,"date":"2026-05-25T08:47:26","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T08:47:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/820726\/"},"modified":"2026-05-25T08:47:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T08:47:26","slug":"rubio-says-u-s-india-ties-are-strong-despite-fury-over-trumps-actions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/820726\/","title":{"rendered":"Rubio Says U.S.-India Ties Are Strong, Despite Fury Over Trump\u2019s Actions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Sunday that the Trump administration remained committed to a strategic partnership with India, apparently trying to defuse tensions from President Trump\u2019s <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/05\/23\/us\/politics\/trump-rubio-india-china.html\" title=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">aggressive actions<\/a> in the past year against India and Indians living in the United States.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">\u201cThe U.S.-India relationship has not lost any momentum,\u201d he said in a news conference in New Delhi on the second day of a four-day trip to India. \u201cThe relationship continues to be strong.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">Mr. Rubio, who has met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other officials on the trip, said the United States wants to continue working with India on trade and investment in advanced technologies.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">And he said Mr. Trump\u2019s efforts to impose tariffs on Indian imports to the United States \u2014 a 50 percent in initial salvos last summer \u2014 were not aimed at India specifically but were part of a global effort to create better balances of trade for the United States.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">The tariffs are a tax paid by American companies that import goods from India.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">\u201cThere\u2019s a huge imbalance that\u2019s built up and it needs to be addressed,\u201d Mr. Rubio said of global trade. \u201cThis is not about India,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">But the high tariffs imposed by Mr. Trump came after Mr. Modi <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/08\/30\/us\/politics\/trump-modi-india.html\" title=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">refused to nominate the American president<\/a> for a Nobel Peace Prize. Mr. Trump has insisted that he played a crucial role in getting India and Pakistan to reach a cease-fire after each country carried out deadly military strikes against the other.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">After that refusal, Mr. Trump acted quickly against India with tariffs, The New York Times <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/08\/30\/us\/politics\/trump-modi-india.html\" title=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">The two countries reached an <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/02\/12\/business\/modi-india-trump-trade-deal-blowback.html\" title=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">interim trade agreement<\/a> in February with onerous terms for India. Then the Supreme Court <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/02\/20\/us\/politics\/supreme-court-trump-tariffs.html\" title=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">struck down<\/a> Mr. Trump\u2019s tariffs on more than 100 countries. The president is still trying to impose such taxes through alternative means.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">Mr. Trump\u2019s actions have upended more than two decades of U.S. policy toward India. From the early 2000s until now, Republican and Democratic administrations, including Mr. Trump\u2019s first one, sought to forge closer ties with India, the world\u2019s most populous nation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">Mr. Rubio said on Sunday that commercial partnerships between India and the United States were a cornerstone of their relationship, which he called \u201ca strategic alliance.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">Standing next to Mr. Rubio, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, the foreign minister of India, said, \u201cthe Trump administration has been very forthright in putting forward its foreign policy as \u2018America First.\u2019\u201d He added, \u201cWe have a view of \u2018India First.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">Mr. Rubio flew into India on Saturday after attending a meeting of foreign ministers of NATO member countries in Sweden the previous day. He visited <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/03\/06\/world\/asia\/mother-teresa-dead.html\" title=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mother Teresa\u2019s charity<\/a> in Kolkata before going to Delhi.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">There, Mr. Rubio delivered an invitation from Mr. Trump for Mr. Modi to visit the White House.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">In a summary of the meeting between Mr. Rubio and Mr. Modi, the State Department said they discussed trade and defense cooperation and the need to resolve the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">One question that looms over Mr. Rubio\u2019s visit in India  is Mr. Trump\u2019s intentions toward Xi Jinping, the leader of China.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">Those two leaders <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/05\/16\/world\/asia\/trump-xi-china-summit.html\" title=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">showered each other with flattery<\/a> at a summit in Beijing last week; Mr. Trump said they would \u201chave a fantastic future together.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">For many Indians, even more troubling is Mr. Trump\u2019s recent praise of Pakistani leaders, who have been <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/05\/23\/world\/middleeast\/iran-us-israel-ceasefire-talks.html\" title=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">mediators<\/a> in the Iran war. <\/p>\n<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">When asked about ties between Washington and Islamabad, Mr. Rubio said, \u201cI don\u2019t view our relation with any country in the world as coming at the expense of our strategic alliance with India.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">Indians are also concerned over recent anti-immigration moves by Mr. Trump, and in particular new efforts aimed at broadly restricting legal immigration.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">On Friday, the Trump administration said most immigrants seeking green cards would have to leave the United States while they waited for their applications to be processed. Many Indian citizens who have been in the United States on work visas, including for jobs in the technology sector, are applying for U.S. green cards.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">\u201cWe are modernizing the U.S. immigration system for the 21st century,\u201d Mr. Rubio said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">An Indian reporter asked Mr. Rubio about recent racist remarks against Indians from the United States. Mr. Rubio asked the reporter, Sidhant Sibal, to tell him who had made the comments, but the reporter declined to do so. \u201cWe have all seen those comments, sir,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">Mr. Rubio said, \u201cThere\u2019s stupid people in the United States that make dumb comments all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">After the news conference ended, Mr. Sibal wrote in a <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/sidhant\/status\/2058461912028131581?s=20\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">social media post<\/a> that he had been talking about Mr. Trump.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">Last month, Mr. Trump <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/04\/23\/us\/politics\/trump-china-india-immigrants.html\" title=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">posted a transcript<\/a> from a right-wing podcast in which the host, Michael Savage, referred to China and India as \u201chellhole\u201d places and said recent immigrants from those countries had not \u201cintegrated\u201d into the United States as \u201cEuropean Americans\u201d had.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-ac37hb evys1bk0\">Without naming Mr. Trump, the Indian government took the rare step of <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/MEAIndia\/status\/2047350177502245093\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">rebuking<\/a> the White House on social media, calling the comments \u201cobviously uninformed, inappropriate and in poor taste.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Sunday that the Trump administration remained committed to a strategic partnership&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":820727,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[69782,51,19928,1567,10273,69784,318385,50,203057,52,69783],"class_list":["post-820726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-customs-tariff","tag-headlines","tag-immigration-and-emigration","tag-india","tag-international-relations","tag-international-trade-and-world-market","tag-marco","tag-news","tag-rubio","tag-top-stories","tag-united-states-international-relations"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116634350626211810","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=820726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/820727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=820726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=820726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=820726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}