Rubio says India-US trade deal is close, heads to Reliance’s Jamnagar refinery

Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, is due to tour Reliance Industries’ refinery complex at Jamnagar in Gujarat on Wednesday, 21 October, a day after he said India and the United States were on the verge of sealing a long-delayed trade agreement.

Rubio began his two-day visit in Mumbai on Tuesday rather than in New Delhi. It is his second trip to India in under five months. He held talks with External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, and the two were joined by Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, the UAE’s top diplomat, for a trilateral meeting on regional energy security, the Associated Press reported.

Trade deal ‘weeks, not months’ away

Before meeting Jaishankar, Rubio told reporters that only a few items were left to settle. “I would say we’re about as close as you can be without having an executed agreement,” he said, according to PTI. In a later interview with CNN-News18, cited by The Wire, he described the remaining issues as technical and said a deal was expected “in a matter of weeks, not months”.

Negotiations have been difficult since 2025, when the US slapped duties as high as 50% on a wide range of Indian exports, 25 percentage points of which were a penalty over New Delhi’s Russian oil imports. A February framework pointed to an 18% rate, but progress later stalled. Earlier this month, Nirmala Sitharaman, the Finance Minister, said the talks had “plateaued”, while Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal has said the first tranche is in its final stages.

Energy at the heart of the visit

According to the US State Department, Rubio argued that buying more American energy would help India spread its sources of supply, and pressed for greater Indian purchases of American technology and defence systems. He also welcomed progress in defence and civil nuclear cooperation. In a social media post, Jaishankar listed trade, energy, technology and defence among the subjects covered, along with links between people.

Rubio called India a “refining superpower” and said he would discuss processing more Venezuelan crude with Reliance, while conceding that sanctions could present “a few impediments”. No other single-site refinery in the world is bigger than Jamnagar, with capacity of about 1.4 million barrels a day, and can process heavy, sulphur-rich grades that many plants cannot, Al Jazeera noted. Kpler estimates cited by Al Jazeera suggest Reliance will take roughly 350,000 to 370,000 barrels a day of Venezuelan crude in October.

On Russian oil, Rubio said India had made “substantial progress” in diversifying, though such a shift could not happen overnight. Kpler data cited by The Wire show India’s intake of Russian crude dropped by almost 29% from July to September, to about 1.82 million barrels a day. The visit comes days after President Donald Trump waived certain sanctions and tariff provisions aimed at buyers of Russian oil.

Al Jazeera linked the refinery stop to Washington’s concern over fuel prices, particularly diesel, which is Reliance’s largest export, ahead of US midterm elections early next month.

Business meetings and terrorism concerns

Rubio’s schedule for Wednesday listed closed-door meetings in Mumbai with Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani at 8.30 am and Tata Group’s N. Chandrasekaran at 9 am, before the Jamnagar engagement at 12.55 pm, the Free Press Journal reported. The Wire said he had changed his plans to stay overnight in Jamnagar, where he is due to meet Reliance chairman Mukesh Ambani, and return to Mumbai on Thursday. No details of the business meetings had been made public at the time of writing.

On Tuesday, Rubio and Jaishankar laid a wreath at the Taj Mahal Palace hotel for the victims of the 26/11 attacks, who included six Americans. At a reception marking 250 years of American independence, Jaishankar said India expected its partners to show “zero tolerance” towards terrorism. Asked about US ties with Pakistan, Rubio told CNN-News18 that Washington had to deal with a nuclear-armed country, The Wire reported.

At the same reception, Rubio said the two countries would not agree on everything, but called their alignment on core interests “extraordinary”. He also said the Quad partners had agreed to hold a leaders’ summit in Manila before the end of the year, alongside the ASEAN meetings, though a date is yet to be fixed.

Sources: Associated Press (via ClickOrlando), PTI (via DT Next), The Wire, Al Jazeera, Free Press Journal