Trump alone can fix ties with India after Rubio’s ‘band-aid’ visit: Lisa Curtis

Washington: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s recent India visit helped stabilise strained Washington-New Delhi ties but only President Donald Trump could fully restore confidence in the bilateral relationship, former White House official Lisa Curtis has said.

Curtis, who served as the Deputy Assistant to the President and National Security Council Senior Director for South and Central Asia from 2017 to 2021, described Rubio’s visit as “more of a band-aid” during an interview with IANS.

“Well, I think it was very important for Secretary Rubio to go to India to try to repair some of the damage done to the US-India relationship over the last year,” Curtis said. “I think his visit did serve as a kind of band-aid to relations.”

Curtis, currently Director of the Indo-Pacific Security Programme at the Centre for a New American Security, said the Quad Foreign Ministers’ meeting held during Rubio’s trip was “very symbolic” and demonstrated that the grouping “still had momentum even though the leaders did not meet.”

At the same time, she said several developments over the past year had unsettled India, including tariffs, immigration restrictions and Washington’s cosiness with Pakistan.

“This is all built up in the Indian psyche,” Curtis said. “I think it shows that the second Trump administration has not been prioritising India and its relationship with India as the first Trump administration did.”

Curtis said only Trump could now engineer a broader reset in ties.

“Only President Trump can really reset the relationship,” she said. “I think only when he shows that he prioritises the relationship and wants to see an improvement from what happened last year.”

She pointed to a few recent developments that she said were viewed positively in New Delhi, including Washington extending a waiver allowing India to continue importing Russian oil.

Curtis also said Indians remained concerned that Trump may be softening his approach towards China after his recent summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

“I think that the outcome of that summit probably has led Indians to believe that President Trump is much more interested in pursuing smooth ties with China, focusing on trade rather than strategic competition,” she said.

She added that comments suggesting weapons sales to Taiwan could become a “negotiating chip” had raised concern across the Indo-Pacific.

On the Quad, Curtis said ministerial-level engagement remained active, but doubts persisted without a leaders’ summit.

“We missed having a leader-level meeting last year,” she said. “This was the first time in five years that there was no leader-level meeting.”

Curtis said that Trump visiting India or publicly stressing India’s importance to the US Indo-Pacific strategy would help rebuild trust.

“The best thing is for President Trump to keep talking about the importance of India,” she said.

The Quad grouping, comprising the United States, India, Japan and Australia, has become a central pillar of Indo-Pacific strategy amid growing concerns over China’s regional influence.

India-US ties have faced turbulence over the past year amid trade tensions, immigration concerns and shifting regional diplomacy. Analysts in Washington and New Delhi have closely watched whether the second Trump administration will maintain the same strategic emphasis on India that marked Trump’s first presidency.

IANS