The first phase of a long-negotiated trade agreement between India and the United States is "very close" to being finalised, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Monday, a signal from the highest levels of the Trump administration that months of difficult negotiations may finally be bearing fruit.
Speaking to reporters in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, Rubio said Washington was working intensively to conclude the deal with New Delhi. "We're trying to finalise a trade deal with India right now. We're very close to doing that," he said, choosing unusually direct language at a moment when relations between the two countries have been strained by disputes over energy purchases, tariff threats and sanctions linked to Russian oil.
The timing of the remark is significant. Rubio is scheduled to land in Mumbai on Tuesday, October 20, for talks with External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, and later in the week he will travel to Jamnagar in Gujarat — home to one of the world's largest oil-refining complexes.
That the itinerary pairs high-level political talks with a visit to the very heart of India's refining business suggests the India leg of his trip is built around closing the remaining gaps in the trade negotiations, not merely maintaining the strategic partnership.
Rubio's comments came a day after US President Donald Trump waived several sanctions and tariff measures related to Russian fuel sales that were to take effect under the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act. The now-paused law would have imposed tariffs of up to 100 per cent on goods brought into the United States from the five largest importers of Russian crude oil or gas — a list that includes India and China.
Explaining the administration's thinking, Rubio linked the trade talks directly to the broader questions of energy and sanctions policy. He said Washington had been compelled to waive certain sanctions-related measures in recent months because of their potential impact on global supplies and prices, and that the White House needed time to assess the effects of such steps on both the global economy and the American economy before settling on a final approach.
"Every country has a complex set of factors that it has to take into account. Geography is real. For some countries, it's very difficult to acquire energy from alternative sources," Rubio said, adding that this was not offered as an excuse but as a factor that had to be balanced in making foreign policy decisions.
India, he noted, had voluntarily diversified its energy portfolio over the past few years but continued to obtain a substantial share of its energy from Russia, because pivoting suppliers overnight was not feasible. At the same time, he described India as an important ally and partner of the United States — a framing that marks a noticeable shift from the sharper rhetoric that has characterised the sanctions debate in recent months.
The trade negotiations between the two countries have been running for much of the year, with Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal earlier indicating that the first phase of the deal was in its final drafting stage and that India was insisting on terms that give its exporters an edge over rival exporting nations.
Officials on both sides have described the talks as technical and detail-heavy, covering tariff lines, market access for agricultural and industrial goods, and the framework for energy cooperation.
Rubio's visit to India is officially about consolidating the strategic partnership, exchanging notes on regional and global developments, and pushing forward on energy cooperation. But read alongside his remarks in Samarkand, the Mumbai and Jamnagar stops look like a deliberate effort to convert negotiating momentum into a concluded agreement.
The broader geopolitical backdrop makes the moment delicate. Just days earlier, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent publicly said that European capitals had declined Washington's appeal to impose tariffs on India and China over their purchases of Russian oil — an admission that underscored how isolated the United States' pressure campaign had become.
In that context, Rubio's conciliatory tone in Samarkand reads as a pivot: rather than leaning harder on penalties, the administration appears to be betting on a concluded trade deal to anchor the relationship.
For India, a trade deal would bring relief to exporters who have been operating under the shadow of tariff threats, and it would provide a framework for the deeper energy cooperation both sides say they want. For Washington, it would mark a rare stabilising win in a relationship that has absorbed considerable friction in recent months over the Russian-oil question.
The friction has not been one-sided. India's purchases of discounted Russian crude expanded sharply after 2022, drawing repeated criticism from Washington, even as New Delhi maintained that its energy policy was guided by the interests of its consumers and that it had in fact been diversifying its sourcing over time.
The Graham Act, championed by Senator Lindsey O. Graham, was meant to turn that criticism into leverage by threatening sweeping secondary tariffs — tariffs that, had they taken effect, would have hit not just Indian goods entering the American market but the entire bilateral trade edifice that both countries say they want to grow.
The 60-day pause that President Trump ordered has given both sides breathing room, and Rubio's remarks suggest the administration intends to use that window to lock in the trade framework first and revisit the sanctions question afterwards. That sequencing matters: negotiators have long argued that a settled trade relationship makes contentious issues easier to manage, while an escalating tariff fight tends to freeze progress on everything else.
European capitals, meanwhile, have made their own calculation. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's disclosure that Europe declined to join a US push for tariffs on India and China over Russian oil underlined that Washington would be acting largely alone if it proceeded with the Graham Act measures.
The episode reinforced a view held quietly in New Delhi for months — that the secondary-tariff threat was more negotiable than it appeared, and that patient engagement would ultimately pay off.
Rubio's Samarkand remarks also fit a pattern of recent American diplomacy toward India. Earlier in October, Washington granted relief on certain Russian energy-related sanctions after acknowledging that an abrupt cutoff would destabilise global supply and raise prices for American consumers as well.
Each such step has been presented in Washington as pragmatic rather than conciliatory, but the cumulative direction is unmistakable: the administration is choosing deal-making over confrontation.
For the business community on both sides, the proof will lie in the text. Exporters in India have been watching the talks for clarity on tariff lines in textiles, pharmaceuticals and engineering goods, while American producers have been pressing for market access in agriculture, dairy and high-technology sectors. A first phase that narrows these gaps, even partially, would give both governments something to build on in the months ahead.
Diplomats familiar with the talks have described the remaining issues as technical but solvable — the kind of details that get settled when ministers sit across the table, as Rubio and Jaishankar will do in Mumbai.
The Jamnagar leg of the trip, meanwhile, puts the spotlight on energy interdependence: the refining complex there processes crude from around the world, and American officials have long argued that deeper US-India energy trade could reduce New Delhi's dependence on Russian barrels over time.
Whether the remaining gaps can indeed be closed this week remains to be seen, but Rubio's own assessment — "very close" — is the strongest public signal yet that the finish line is in sight.
(Reporting based on ANI, Republic World and India TV News.)