US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s six-day tour, including a visit to India this week, comes as Washington reassesses the global consequences of sanctions and tariffs targeting buyers of Russian oil. His itinerary includes Reliance Industries Limited’s massive refinery in Jamnagar, Gujarat, a major processor of Russian crude.
Rubio has acknowledged that India remains heavily reliant on Russian crude despite diversifying its energy sources “because it’s hard to pivot from one day to the next”, and said its importance as a US partner warranted time to assess the right policy response. On Friday, US President Donald Trump waived key provisions of the Lindsey O Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026 (SRIA), which authorised punitive tariffs on countries buying Russian oil. Speaking on Saturday before flying to Uzbekistan and later India, Rubio said: “I think the president wants to take the 60-day period of time to sort of analyse what imposing both sanctions and tariffs will mean to the global economy, and even to the US economy.”
Rubio’s Jamnagar visit carries particular significance: Reliance is the largest purchaser of Venezuelan crude outside the US, and the Trump administration has urged India to buy more oil from Venezuela. In March, Trump announced on Truth Social what he described as a $300 billion refinery deal with Reliance, saying the company would invest in a new refinery in Brownsville, Texas — the first new US refinery in 50 years.
The Jamnagar refinery has also come under scrutiny over exports of refined products made from Russian crude. The Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) said in a report on October 16 that, despite a European Union (EU) ban on imports of oil products made from Russian crude that took effect on January 21, 2026, seven shipments from refineries deemed high-risk under EU guidance were unloaded at European ports in September. Six originated at Jamnagar and one at Turkey’s Tupras Izmit refinery. The number was lower than in August, CREA said.
Also Read
It estimated that refineries in India, Türkiye and Brunei processing Russian crude exported €1 billion ($1.12 billion)-worth of oil products to countries imposing sanctions in September, a 43 per cent month-on-month rise in shipments reported as destined for their ports. US-bound exports included €122 million ($137 billion) from Jamnagar and €33 million ($37 million) from Türkiye STAR refinery.
Between July and September, 32 per cent of Jamnagar’s crude imports came from Russia, according to the report.
Against this backdrop, Washington has announced plans to buy 300,000 tonnes of Russian diesel immediately, followed by 500,000 tonnes in November and potentially 1 million tonnes in December. The purchases come as Russian diesel production is estimated to have fallen nearly 30 per cent year on year, amid long-range Ukrainian drone and missile strikes, according to the International Energy Agency.
The US Treasury Department has suspended sanctions on Russian diesel exports until April 7, 2027. The administration has defended the purchases as a means of increasing supplies to global markets and easing fuel prices.
New Delhi has declined to comment directly on the commercial arrangement. “As far as the diesel deal is concerned, we do not wish to comment on commercial arrangements that have been made between two countries, except to say that we have always advocated for stability in global energy markets,” Randhir Jaiswal, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson, said last week.
Since the SRIA’s passage in mid-September, India has maintained that sanctions over its Russian crude purchases would affect not only bilateral ties with the US but also international energy markets. Indian officials have repeatedly accused the US and EU of “hypocrisy”, “moral ambiguity” and “double standards” over purchases of Russian energy. Washington’s latest moves, sources said, have reinforced New Delhi’s argument that sanctions can have consequences far beyond their intended targets.
The diesel arrangement also comes weeks before November’s US midterm elections, with Trump under pressure over high energy prices as the war with Iran disrupts global oil supplies.
Rubio’s second visit to India this year comes amid fraying relations, even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Trump could meet twice by mid-December: At the East Asia Summit in Manila in mid-November and on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Florida.
The “bumps” in bilateral ties since May 2025 have included Washington’s closeness to Pakistan’s military leadership, what New Delhi sees as a lack of empathy for its concerns over terrorism, the Trump administration’s restrictions targeting skilled Indian immigrants, threats of tariffs and sanctions over Russian oil purchases, and choppy negotiations over a trade deal, in which India’s insistence on protecting the interests of its farmer remains a central sticking point. Union ministers have offered differing assessments of the talks this month, describing them variously as having reached a “plateau” and a “landing point”, while negotiations continue on outstanding issues.
Last week, US Ambassador to India Sergio Gor said Rubio’s visit would have a strong business focus. His announcement that Washington expected External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar to meet Rubio in Mumbai prompted criticism from the opposition Congress party, which questioned the government’s decision to host the meeting outside New Delhi. The Ministry of External Affairs said visiting dignitaries had been received outside the capital on previous occasions, though rarely. In July, the government abandoned an earlier plan to host Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi in Guwahati and instead received her in New Delhi.
Rubio departed on Saturday for his October 17-22 tour of Uzbekistan and India, accompanied by a 200-member business delegation. He is due to meet Jaishankar in Mumbai on Tuesday, October 20, to discuss prospects for greater energy co-operation. He will also meet business leaders to promote commercial investment and economic ties, and visit Jamnagar. On his previous visit, in May, Rubio travelled to Kolkata and New Delhi, where he attended a Quad foreign ministers’ meeting.
Speaking to reporters before boarding a plane for Samarkand on Saturday, Rubio acknowledged that India had diversified its energy sources but remained heavily reliant on Russian oil. “You’ve got countries like India, for example, that have voluntarily diversified their energy portfolio, but are still getting a substantial amount of energy from Russia because it’s hard to pivot from one day to the next,” he said. India remained an important US ally and partner, he added, and the administration needed time to determine the right policy mix.
Rubio also defended Washington’s separate arrangement with Moscow to increase diesel supplies to global markets, arguing that the fuel would be sold regardless. “That diesel is going to be sold one way or the other,” he said. “The only difference is how much of it the United States was going to get.”
In a related development, six Democratic lawmakers in the US Congress, including Pramila Jayapal and Ilhan Omar, have urged Rubio to raise with Indian officials allegations of excessive force during student protests in Delhi and elsewhere in India. India’s ambassador to the US, Vinay Mohan Kwatra, criticised Jayapal’s remarks as “unacceptable interference in India’s internal affairs”.
With inputs from agencies