Rubio Meets Indian Foreign Minister in Mumbai, Skips New Delhi on India Trip

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio held talks with Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar in Mumbai during his trip to India, but did not meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and bypassed the capital, New Delhi, according to The Guardian.

The U.S. State Department lists Rubio's official travel to Samarkand, Mumbai and Jamnagar as running from October 17 to 22, 2026. It dates his meeting with Jaishankar to October 20. The two men held a bilateral meeting at the Taj Mahal Palace hotel in Mumbai, and the State Department says Rubio appeared there on October 22 with Sergio Gor, the U.S. ambassador to India.

Mumbai was not the only stop. Rubio also travelled to Jamnagar, a city that is home to Reliance Industries' oil refinery complex. There he met Mukesh Ambani, the chair of Reliance, according to The Guardian.

In Mumbai, Rubio also met business leaders and spoke to reporters at the Taj Mahal Palace. The Guardian reported that the visit came five months after his first trip to India as secretary of state.

A secretary of state is the top U.S. foreign policy official, responsible for the State Department and its diplomacy with other governments. Jaishankar leads India's Ministry of External Affairs, the government department that handles relations with other countries.