Rubio says India-US trade deal is 'about as close as you can be' after Jaishankar talks

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Tuesday that India and the United States were on the verge of signing their long-delayed trade agreement, after a day of talks in Mumbai with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar.

“We’re very, very close. I would say we’re about as close as you can be without having executed the agreement,” Rubio told reporters in the city. He said a small number of items remained open and that the deal would probably be completed shortly.

Jaishankar said the discussions had ranged over trade, energy, technology and defence, as well as developments in the region. The two men met at the Taj Mahal Palace hotel, at the start of Rubio’s second visit to India this year.

A three-way meeting with the UAE

Later, Rubio and Jaishankar were joined by Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE’s foreign minister, who had spent the previous two days in Mumbai for talks with Jaishankar. The three discussed regional energy security and shared economic priorities, a pressing subject for India as the West Asia crisis continues to disrupt oil supplies from the Gulf.

Why the deal has dragged on

The talks have been stuck for months over American tariffs and India’s purchases of discounted Russian crude. Washington imposed tariffs of up to 50 per cent on most Indian goods in August 2025 after negotiations broke down. A framework agreed in February brought the rate down to 18 per cent, but progress stalled after that.

Earlier this month, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman described the talks as having “plateaued”. Last week Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said the first part of the deal was in its final stages. New Delhi wants its final tariff rate to be comparable with those of competitors such as Vietnam.

Speaking in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, on Monday, Rubio had suggested that a deal could shape President Donald Trump’s decisions on national security waivers, including those tied to tariffs over India’s Russian oil imports. He also acknowledged that India could not switch suppliers overnight. “You also can’t unravel the economy of other countries because of one central issue,” he said.

India has said it will buy more energy from the United States while spreading its sources. Indian refineries are built largely to process medium-sour crude from the Middle East and Russia, while most American crude is light and has to be blended before use.

What comes next

Rubio, who was due to lay a wreath at the Taj memorial to the victims of the 26/11 attacks, six of them American, heads to Gujarat on Wednesday to visit Reliance Industries’ refinery complex at Jamnagar and meet business leaders. Despite the strains of the past year, the two governments have kept deepening defence and technology ties, and Washington continues to see India as a counterweight to China in the Indo-Pacific.