India Index founder and CEO Samir Kapadia joins ‘Mornings with Maria’ to interrupt down Rubio’s India journey, the US push to safe crucial minerals and counter China and balancing Pakistan ties amid Iran tensions.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio simply wrapped a four-day go to to India with a Quad assembly over the weekend. Power safety was on the forefront of discussions, alongside Indo-Pacific safety, commerce and provide chain resilience.
The journey was Rubio’s first go to to the nation because the Secretary of State and Nationwide Safety Advisor, and got here at a second of delicate U.S.-India relations and heightened volatility in world vitality markets.
Earlier than embarking on his journey, Rubio mentioned Washington needs New Delhi to purchase extra American oil and gasoline.
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U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Indian International Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar attend a joint press convention after their assembly on the Hyderabad Home in New Delhi, India, Could 24, 2026. (Adnan Abidi/Reuters / Reuters)
“We wish to promote them as a lot vitality as they’ll purchase. We wish them to be an even bigger a part of the portfolio,” Rubio advised reporters in Miami final week, including, “There’s so much to work on with India. They’re an awesome ally, an awesome companion.”
India, the world’s second-largest importer of oil, imports practically 88% of its crude. Greater than half of these imports come from the Center East, a lot of it transiting the Strait of Hormuz. The Iran battle has created a major vitality disaster for the South Asian nation. And even with indicators of a peace deal rising, the disruptions are anticipated to linger, deepening New Delhi’s fears over long-term vitality safety.
India has more and more sought various provides and seemed to diversify its vitality future, which is accelerating broader U.S.-India vitality cooperation.
“Secretary Rubio ought to clarify that America needs to be India’s vitality companion of alternative. U.S. vitality provides India a safe various to opaque, sanctions-exposed provide chains, Max Meizlish, Analysis Fellow on the Basis for Protection of Democracies’ Heart on Financial and Monetary Energy, advised FOX Enterprise.
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“However the partnership has to run each methods. India can’t be a strategic vitality companion for Washington whereas Indian companies are repeatedly surfacing in sanctions designations involving Iranian vitality flows, shadow fleet transport, falsified origin claims and Russian sanctions evasion,” he added.
An Iranian flag flies above ships anchored within the Strait of Hormuz because the U.S. cracks down on Iran’s rising use of cryptocurrency. (Majid Saeedi / Getty Photos)
India has continued to purchase discounted Russian crude, regardless of sanctions and strain from Washington to scale back dependence on Moscow’s vitality exports. Now, the U.S. is hoping to steer India to buy extra oil and liquefied pure gasoline from America and Venezuela.
This month, Venezuela overtook Saudi Arabia and the US to turn out to be India’s third-largest crude provider.
Throughout a gathering with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Rubio underscored the strategic significance of the U.S.-India partnership and affirmed that U.S. vitality merchandise have the potential to diversify India’s vitality provide.
In an X put up on Saturday, Rubio additionally mentioned that Delhi dedicated to purchasing $500 billion in American items over the following 5 years, specializing in vitality, know-how and agriculture.
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On the similar time, India is making an attempt to safe long-term vitality independence by quickly increasing home nuclear energy era.
Final month, India hit a significant nuclear milestone when its most superior reactor, the Prototype Quick Breeder Reactor (PFBR), achieved a self-sustaining stage.
In contrast to typical reactors, quick breeder reactors produce extra fissile materials than they eat, probably lowering long-term dependence on imported gasoline sources.
As soon as absolutely operational, India will turn out to be solely the second nation after Russia to run a business fast-breeder reactor.
The India-flagged oil tanker Desh Ujaala is pictured within the Gulf waters close to Al-Basrah Oil Terminal (ABOT), about 50 kilometres offshore of Iraq’s southern Faw peninsula, on August 5, 2025. (Hussein Faleh/AFP through Getty Photos / Getty Photos)
As this unfolds, New Delhi can be deepening nuclear cooperation with Washington because it seeks international funding and superior know-how to quickly scale up its atomic vitality sector.
Earlier this month, a high-level 20-member U.S. Government Nuclear Trade Delegation visited India to discover personal funding and know-how commercialization alternatives in India’s civil nuclear vitality market, with discussions targeted on superior nuclear applied sciences and small modular reactors.
U.S. Ambassador to the nation, Sergio Gor, just lately praised the rising India-U.S. vitality partnership, saying “massive issues” lie forward.
India plans to extend its nuclear energy capability from 8.8 gigawatts to 100 gigawatts by 2047, creating what officers estimate may turn out to be an almost $300 billion nuclear vitality market.
The deepening vitality ties lengthen past vitality imports alone.
President Donald Trump just lately introduced a historic $300 billion refinery settlement with India’s Reliance Industries. Beneath the deal, a brand new oil refinery could be constructed on the Port of Brownsville in Texas. It’s set to turn out to be the primary new main U.S. refinery in-built 50 years.
Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, on the Bhartiya Janata Occasion (BJP) headquarters throughout election outcomes night time in New Delhi, India, on Tuesday, June 4, 2024. (Prakash Singh/Bloomberg through Getty Photos / Getty Photos)
With analysts warning that extended instability involving Iran may proceed rattling world oil markets and provide chains, Rubio’s journey highlighted the rising strategic significance of vitality cooperation between Washington and New Delhi.
For Washington, India represents one of many world’s fastest-growing vitality markets and a key strategic companion within the Indo-Pacific.
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For New Delhi, deeper ties with the U.S. supply a possibility to diversify vitality provides, whereas lowering vulnerability to shocks rippling from the Center East.
“The objective needs to be extra American vitality flowing to India and much much less sanctioned Iranian and Russian vitality shifting by means of Indian channels,” Meizlish advised Fox.
