India voices concern over US visas but expresses alignment with Rubio on other issues

NEW DELHI – India voiced concern on May 24 over a US visa crackdown, striking a rare critical note, even as it expressed broad alignment with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on other fractious issues.

Paying his first visit to India, Mr 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 External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar agreed that the two countries have a “convergence of national interests in many areas”.

However, he publicly took Mr Rubio to task over US President Donald Trump’s assault on visas.

Mr 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.

Mr Jaishankar noted that visas were key for US-India tech cooperation.

Mr Trump, who has made curbing non-Western immigration a key political priority, has ramped up restrictions and fees for H-1B visas, which are used largely by Indian tech workers, sending applications tumbling.

The Trump administration followed up on May 22 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.

Mr Trump has been influenced by nativist critics who say Indian workers take away skilled jobs from Americans who would have earned more.

In April, Mr Trump reposted a remark by 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 US about Indians, Mr Rubio replied: “Every country in the world has stupid people.”

Mr Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, added: “Our nation has been enriched by people who come to our country.”

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

Mr 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 Mr Trump, Mr Rubio and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Addressing the crowd in a phone call by speakerphone held up by Ambassador Sergio Gor, Mr Trump hailed his rapport with Mr Modi and boasted, “anything India wants, India gets”.

But Mr 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.

Mr Trump has hailed both China and India’s historic adversary Pakistan, which has positioned itself as the key mediator in the Iran war, and in 2025, imposed punishing tariffs on India after Mr 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 Gor, who had been a top political aide to Mr Trump.

Addressing the party, Mr Gor said he expected the interim trade deal to be signed “in the next few weeks”.

Mr Rubio, who is making 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,” he said at 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.”

Mr Jaishankar, asked about Pakistan’s new role in mediating on Iran, said the US 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,” he added.

“We have a view of India First.” AFP