Marco

United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio is to visit India in the coming week, but he will not set foot in the capital, New Delhi.

Instead, on Monday, Rubio will hold talks with Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar in Mumbai, India’s financial hub, and then visit an oil refinery in Jamnagar in the western state of Gujarat, according to a statement from the US Department of State.

His itinerary sparked a political storm after the US ambassador to India said Washington expected Jaishankar to travel to meet Rubio, prompting opposition leaders to accuse the government of allowing India’s top diplomat to be “summoned” on home soil.

The spat comes as relations between the two countries are strained over trade, tariffs and India’s purchases of Russian oil.

So why is Rubio avoiding New Delhi, and why has it caused such upset? Here’s what you need to know:

What is Rubio doing in India?

He plans to discuss trade, energy and investment.

Rubio is arriving on Sunday from Samarkand, Uzbekistan, where he has been meeting with five Central Asian states at the C5+1 summit.

In India, he is due to meet senior officials to discuss the US-India strategic partnership and energy cooperation and hold talks with business leaders, the State Department said.

Indian Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal appeared to confirm the agenda, stating on Friday that the Mumbai talks would cover energy, trade and investment, defence, and critical and emerging technologies.

In Jamnagar, Rubio is to visit the world’s largest single-site refinery, operated by billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries, and attend a reception hosted by the Ambani family, according to The Hindu newspaper.

Why isn’t Rubio going to New Delhi?

No official reason has been given.

Rubio was in the Indian capital in May for a meeting of foreign ministers of countries in the Quad, a group consisting of the US, India, Japan and Australia.

The State Department has framed his upcoming trip around energy and investment, and the second stop on Rubio’s India visit, Jamnagar, is one of the world’s most important energy hubs.

The visit also comes as fuel prices bite in the US before next month’s midterm elections.

Reliance, an energy, retail and telecommunications conglomerate, also sits at the centre of Washington’s wider oil diplomacy.

Business Standard, an Indian financial daily, said the Jamnagar stop was significant because Reliance is the biggest buyer of Venezuelan crude oil besides the US at a time when Washington has been urging India to buy more.

Since US forces seized Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in January and took essential control of the country’s oil industry, the US government has marketed Venezuelan oil to buyers abroad.

Reliance is also investing in a new refinery in Texas, the first to be built in the US in 50 years, which Trump hailed as a $300bn deal when he announced it in March, Business Standard reported.

What did the US ambassador say, and why has it caused upset?

Speaking at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in New Delhi on Thursday, US Ambassador to India Sergio Gor said Rubio would meet Indian government officials in Mumbai, and Washington “expected” Jaishankar and others from New Delhi to travel there to see him.

Earlier in the week, however, Jaiswal had not confirmed the trip or explained why Rubio was skipping New Delhi, telling reporters the Indian government would announce it “at the appropriate time”, The Hindu newspaper reported.

Jairam Ramesh, a general secretary of the opposition Indian National Congress party, wrote on X that the ambassador’s statement was “quite extraordinary”.

Rahul Gandhi, leader of the opposition in parliament’s lower house, also took to X to comment, writing on Friday that Rubio had “summoned his employee to Mumbai”.

Congress MP Pawan Khera went further.

“A foreign government summoning India’s External Affairs Minister on Indian soil is a new low, even by the Modi Government’s standards,” he wrote on X, referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Why are US-India relations strained?

Mainly because of Trump’s tariffs and Russian oil.

In August last year after a round of trade talks broke down, the US hit most Indian goods with a 50 percent tariff. Under a framework the two sides agreed in February, that rate fell to 18 percent, however.

Since then, negotiations have stalled.

This month, Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the talks had “plateaued”, according to The Hindu.

On Thursday, Trade Minister Piyush Goyal said the “first tranche” of a deal was in its final stages but India would not sign until its exporters had an edge over rivals such as Bangladesh, Vietnam and Indonesia, according to the Reuters news agency.

Other points of friction have emerged.

Last week, US Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling announced that his department was suspending eight companies – including the Indian IT giants Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro and HCL – from a labour certification scheme that is a key step for employers seeking green cards for their foreign staff.

Sameer Lalwani, a senior fellow in the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote this week that Indian public opinion of the US has hit a record low, citing US engagement with Pakistan and the US-Israel war on Iran, which he said had pushed India back towards Russian oil.

Despite that, he argued, defence and technology cooperation has quietly deepened, and bilateral trade grew by almost 12 percent in 2025 to nearly $240bn.

In his view, “perceptions of the political relationship have deteriorated faster than its strategic foundations.”

A sanctions law had threatened to make matters worse.

Last month, Trump signed the Lindsey O Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act, which could impose tariffs of up to 100 percent on goods from the five largest importers of Russian oil or gas.

India, one of the world’s biggest buyers of Russian oil, had warned Washington that new tariffs could hurt bilateral ties. Trump signed an executive order seeking to waive the sanctions on Friday as he tries to ease high oil prices before the November 3 US elections.

Marco Reus had a goal and an assist to back JT Marcinkowski and the Galaxy beat the Portland Timbers 2-0 on Wednesday night at Dignity Health Sports Park.

Reus staked the Galaxy (10-11-9) to a 1-0 lead in the 17th minute when he used assists from Robert Taylor and Pablo Ruiz to score his eighth goal of the campaign.

That’s where the score stood until Reus set up up Justin Haak in the 80th minute for his second goal this season and his fourth in 110 matches. It was the career-high 11th assist for Reus.

Marcinkowski finished with five saves for the Galaxy. It was his fourth clean sheet in 24 starts this season.

James Pantemis stopped three shots for Portland (9-14-6).

The clubs played to a 1-1 draw in Portland to close out March.

The Galaxy improved to 6-4-5 at home, while the Timbers fall to 2-10-3 on the road.

Portland has gone 1-4-2 since the start of September.

Marco Bezzecchi triumphed at the Indonesian Grand Prix, while Jorge Martin finished third to retake the lead from Marc Marquez in the MotoGP world championship.

Italian Bezzecchi made his move on pole-sitter Raul Fernandez with nine laps to go at a sweltering Mandalika International Circuit.

Fernandez finished second ahead of compatriot Martin, with the Spanish duo locking out the podium for Italian manufacturer Aprilia.

Ducati’s reigning seven-time world champion Marquez finished sixth, losing the championship lead he had taken for the first time this season by winning Saturday’s sprint race.

Fernandez and Bezzecchi had clashed and crashed out in that race, with the Spaniard needing to brake with his middle finger for the whole of Sunday’s race after fracturing his index finger.

Starting at the front of the grid, the pair negotiated the first turn and then surged away from the chasing pack.

Having initially looked comfortable, Fernandez began to fade and Bezzecchi seized an opportunity on lap 19 before putting distance on his rival.

The result for 2024 world champion Martin moves him up to 355 points at the top of the championship standings, with Marquez second on 353 and Bezzecchi third with 309.

There are five grands prix remaining in the 2026 season, with the Australian Grand Prix at Phillip Island the next meeting in the calendar in a fortnight’s time.

Washington’s top diplomat calls the suspected plot ‘a very serious situation’ after five were arrested over the weekend.

United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said a “foreign actor” was involved in a suspected bomb plot near an airbase in the United Kingdom used by the US military.

Police arrested five men, all British nationals from London, in their early to mid-20s, on Sunday after being alerted by a local farmer about three white vans driving towards RAF Fairford, a British base that houses US bombers flying missions against Iran.

The counterterrorism police said on Monday they were investigating whether individuals were acting for a foreign state in an apparent plot to attack the airbase. They later said the suspects would be released on bail.

Commenting on the suspected plot and arrests on the Hannity programme on Fox News late on Monday, Rubio said, “What happened, what almost happened, what could have happened in the UK over the weekend is a very serious situation.”

“It’s one that clearly involves the hands of a foreign actor. I won’t get into great detail about that yet,” he added.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) had said in July the Fairford base was a legitimate target.

Iran’s embassy in London said in a statement on Monday it “categorically rejects and strongly condemns the recent unfounded and malicious speculations” that it was involved, which it said would fuel “Iranophobia propaganda” in the UK.

Trump said on Sunday the UK and the US had had the suspects “under investigation” for a while and alleged, “They were looking to do big damage to our fort.”

After hearing news that suspects were being released on bail, Trump said on Monday the case “might be” linked to Iran but declined to elaborate.

US bombers

The UK gave the US permission in March to use Fairford for “specific defensive operations into Iran” to destroy Iranian missiles at source.

US bombers and other planes have since been seen taking off and landing at the base – the only one on the British mainland used for this purpose.

Residents in the rural Cotswolds area surrounding Fairford said the site, which hosts a range of US military equipment and personnel, had seen increased activity and security in recent months.

Authorities evacuated about 85 households from a nearby village early on Sunday, but they were allowed to return home the next day.

Tehran has previously warned London against allowing its bases to be used by the US in operations against Iran.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has accused London of “putting British lives in danger” by allowing the bases to be used “for aggression against Iran”.