Table Stakes - May 25th

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I’m Atlas, and welcome to Table Stakes!

Here’s a look at today’s topics:

• Rubio Seeks Stronger Ties In 1st Official Trip To India

• Trump On Iran Deal: No Rush

• Hypersonic Missile Used In Latest Russian Attack On Ukraine

Rubio Seeks Stronger Ties In 1st Official Trip To India

_{By: Atlas}

Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived in India on Saturday for his first official visit to the country, a four-day trip designed to repair a U.S.–India relationship that has been bruised by tariffs, Iran war diplomacy, and Washington's growing engagement with both Pakistan and China.

Rubio landed in Kolkata on Saturday morning, visited the Missionaries of Charity, and traveled on to New Delhi for talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar. He is also scheduled to visit Agra and Jaipur before the Quad foreign ministers' meeting in the Indian capital on Tuesday.

President Donald Trump made a surprise live call into a U.S. Embassy event in Delhi marking America's 250th Independence Day. "I love India and their Prime Minister," he told the room. "PM Modi is great, he is my friend. ... We have never been closer to India, and India can 100 percent count on me and our country." Rubio extended an invitation on Trump's behalf for Modi to visit the White House.

"The breadth and scope of the list of issues we work together with India on highlights that India is one of the most important strategic partnerships of the United States in the world," Rubio said at a joint press conference at Hyderabad House on Saturday. Jaishankar said the two sides had discussed "the entire spectrum" of bilateral ties, including trade and energy, defense and security, critical minerals and artificial intelligence, nuclear cooperation, and counterterrorism.

Energy and the Strait of Hormuz

Energy dominated the working agenda. India imports more than 80 percent of its energy needs, and nearly half of its crude oil shipments typically pass through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway that Iran has effectively closed since the war began on February 28. The strait carried about a fifth of the world's oil and natural gas before the conflict.

Rubio told reporters that progress had been made over the previous 48 hours on an outline that could help resolve the situation around the strait, and said there was a possibility of "good news" within hours. He reiterated that Iran could not be allowed to acquire a nuclear weapon and called attacks on commercial vessels "totally illegal."

The U.S. side used the visit to pitch American energy as a long-term substitute for India's existing supply mix. Rubio told Modi that "U.S. energy products have the potential to diversify India's energy supply" and that "the United States will not let Iran hold the global energy market hostage." Rubio said this weekend that India had committed to buy $500 billion in U.S. goods over the next five years, with a focus on energy, technology, and agriculture, building on an interim trade agreement reached in February.

Jaishankar said the United States had emerged as "a reliable energy source for India." Delhi has been weighing the practical limits of that pitch. U.S. shipments are a longer and more expensive route than supplies from the Gulf or Russia, and Washington has so far granted India a waiver on its purchases of Russian oil.

Trade Friction and the Tariff Reset

Rubio's trip comes against the backdrop of a year of trade turbulence. Trump imposed reciprocal tariffs as high as 50 percent on Indian goods last year before lowering them to 18 percent in February as part of the interim agreement. A U.S. Supreme Court ruling in late February struck down the broader tariffs, which effectively brought the duty rate on Indian goods down to 10 percent. The two sides have yet to finalize a comprehensive trade deal.

The U.S. goods trade deficit with India was $58.2 billion in 2025, a 27.1 percent jump from the year before. Trump has cited that gap as a central irritant in the relationship and has pressed Delhi to buy more American energy, aircraft, technology, and agricultural products. Indian exports to the United States rose 0.9 percent in the fiscal year ended March 2026 to $87.3 billion, and an additional $8.5 billion in goods shipped to the United States in April as the lower tariffs took effect.

Jaishankar said the two sides had discussed concluding the broader bilateral trade deal at an early date and the visa challenges faced by Indian workers. Richard Rossow of the Center for Strategic and International Studies said the absence of a final trade agreement "more than three months after the announcement of the 'interim deal'" continued to "cloud other areas of engagement."

Pakistan, China, and the Quad

Rubio's visit also has to navigate friction over Washington's recent regional posture. Trump has publicly called Pakistani Army Chief Field Marshal Asim Munir his "favorite field marshal," and Islamabad has emerged as the lead mediator in the Iran war negotiations. Trump has also repeatedly claimed he brokered the end of last year's brief India-Pakistan conflict — a claim Delhi has consistently rejected, citing its longstanding policy of refusing third-party mediation between the two nuclear-armed neighbors.

Trump's state visit to Beijing earlier this month also rattled Indian officials, who watched the warm reception Trump received and the new "constructive relationship of strategic stability" framework that emerged from the trip. Basant Sanghera, a former State Department South Asia policy expert now at The Asia Group, said Trump's approach had "created a perfect storm of anxiety" in Delhi, "but ties have stabilized and both sides are trying to build momentum in the areas that there is convergence."

The Quad foreign ministers' meeting on Tuesday — bringing together the United States, India, Japan, and Australia — is the centerpiece of Rubio's trip. A leaders' summit was originally expected last year but was postponed amid lukewarm interest from Trump, and some analysts have argued the grouping has been on "life support." Rossow described the upcoming foreign ministers' gathering, the third such meeting without a corresponding leaders' summit, as effectively an "unannounced downgrade" of the format. Delhi is hoping a leaders' summit can still take place in India later this year, and is also preparing to host a BRICS summit in September.

A Personal Reset Attempt

The visit is also being used to recalibrate the personal channels between the two governments. U.S. Ambassador Sergio Gor, a friend of Trump's and a former White House adviser who arrived in Delhi in January, has spent his first months in post working to reset ties; Michael Kugelman of the Atlantic Council has called him "the India whisperer." Rubio also dedicated a new consular wing at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi during the visit. "Every visa decision is a national security decision," he wrote on X.

Modi, in his readout of the Saturday meeting, said the two leaders had discussed "issues related to regional and global peace and security" and reiterated India's "support for peaceful resolution of conflict through dialogue and diplomacy." He did not mention Iran by name. Rubio will travel on to Agra and Jaipur over the next two days before returning to Delhi for the Quad ministers' meeting on Tuesday.

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