Paying his first visit to India, Rubio said the two democracies were on the same page on all major issues, brushing aside recent unease in New Delhi over trade, China and the Iran war.
India’s foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar agreed that the two countries had a “convergence of national interests in many areas” but publicly took Rubio to task over president Donald Trump’s assault on visas.
Jaishankar said he “apprised Secretary Rubio of challenges that legitimate travellers face in respect of visa issuance”.
“While we cooperate to deal with illegal and irregular mobility, our expectation is that legal mobility should not be adversely impacted as a consequence,” he said, noting that visas were key for US-India tech cooperation.
Trump, who has made curbing non-Western immigration a key political priority, has ramped up restrictions and fees for H-1B visas used largely by Indian tech workers, sending applications tumbling.
The Trump administration followed up Friday by saying that applicants for permanent residency, even when in the United States legally, must leave for processing, likely splitting up many families for extended periods.
Trump has been influenced by nativist critics who say Indian workers take away skilled jobs from Americans who would have earned more.
Last month, Trump reposted a far-right commentator who described India as a “hellhole” and inaccurately alleged that Indian immigrants lack English proficiency.
Asked about racist remarks in the United States about Indians, Rubio said, “Every country in the world has stupid people”.
“Our nation has been enriched by people who come to our country,” said Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants.
He acknowledged there would be “bumps” as the United States reforms immigration but said the changes were in response to a “migratory crisis” and “not India-specific”.
Trade deal finalised soon
Rubio later headlined a gala party in New Delhi for the 250th anniversary of US independence, in which invited guests, some decked out in red, white and blue, could pose next to cutouts of Trump, Rubio and Indian prime minister Narendra Modi.
Addressing the crowd by speakerphone held up by ambassador Sergio Gor, Trump hailed his rapport with Modi and boasted, “anything India wants, India gets.”
But Trump in fact has shifted decades of US policy of overlooking disagreements with India, which successive previous administrations have viewed as a natural counterweight to a rising China.
Trump has hailed both China and India’s historic adversary Pakistan, which has positioned itself as the key mediator on the Iran war, and last year imposed punishing tariffs on India after Modi refused to give him credit for ending a short war with Pakistan.
The tariffs were eased after the arrival in India in January of US ambassador Sergio Gor, who had been a top political aide to Trump.
Addressing the party, Gor said he expected the interim trade deal to be signed “in the next few weeks”.
Rubio, who is paying an unusually long four-day, four-city trip to India, called the country “one of our most important strategic partners in the world”.
“It begins with the fact of our shared values. We are the two largest democracies,” Rubio told the news conference.
“Our nations are strategically aligned on all of the key issues that will define the new century – all the great challenges that are before us now in the modern era,” he said.
Jaishankar, asked about Pakistan’s new role in mediating on Iran, said the United States was free to choose its own partners but acknowledged that differences will emerge between the two countries.
“The Trump administration has been very forthright in putting forward its foreign policy outlook as America First,” Jaishankar said.
“We have a view of India First,” he said.