At a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on the FY 27 State Department budget request, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, made a case about the Trump administration’s foreign policy successes, citing as an example the role he played in preventing a war between India and Pakistan.
“I think that I would characterize the last 16, 17 months at the State Department as two things – a history of tremendous successes combined with ongoing and difficult challenges. And we will always have ongoing and difficult challenges in the world. Let me walk through them one by one,” Rubio began his statement.
The first on his list of successes was the India-Pakistan standoff.
“India and Pakistan were on the verge of an all-out war. The State Department and I personally were involved in de-escalating that conflict and bringing it to an end, a war between two nuclear powers,” asserted Rubio.
Rubio was referring to the April-May 2025 conflict escalated by a terrorist attack on April 22, following which India launched airstrikes on Pakistan on May 7, naming it Operation Sindoor. The four-day conflict ended May 10.
President Trump has made claims in the past repeatedly about how he helped bring the flareup to an end, and New Delhi has repeatedly refuted any external influence played a part in the two traditional enemies putting a stop to their attacks on each other.
Later during the question period of the House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, following his initial testimony, Rubio dug deeper into the growing relationship between the two democracies, having just returned from a visit to India which was full of pomp and pageantry; and where America’s 250th anniversary was also celebrated.
Congressman Bill Huizenga, a Republican from Michigan, asked him about his India visit, noting, “India is a critical economic security partner for the US across the Indo-Pacific. Can you please share with the committee the outcomes of recent visit and how the Trump administration is strengthening the partnership while simultaneously addressing longstanding market access issues?”
To this Rubio responded that India was “an important strategic ally” and that Washington and New Delhi will be doing “a lot of things together” and that the opportunity for doing even more was there.
“The two points we focused on are one, the hopes that we can wrap up the negotiations on our trade agreement, which we think we’re a few weeks away from being able to conclude,” Rubio said, noting that he was not involved in the direct negotiations which were the function of the US Trade Representative, “but we think we’re pretty close in getting that done. Both sides want to see it done.”
Rubio also said the other reason he was in India was to have bilateral and multilateral meetings of the four ministers from the Quad – Australia, Japan, US, and India.
“In addition to the bilateral meetings, we were able to host a meeting once again at the four ministers of the quad.” In that forum, he said there are a “number of things we’re working on, and now we have actionable items that we’re beginning to focus on.”
As part of that, Rubio mentioned a new port facility in the region, “that we’re going to work together on, for one of those small Pacific islands. I think that is an important show.”
In that context, Rubio mentioned about talking to Fiji to see if it would be able to be involved in the initiative.
“And on the second one that we are working together on, … the second one that I would tell you is that one of the things we agreed to work on is domain awareness, working together and pooling our resources, so we can have domain awareness about what’s happening out in the sea.”
Domain awareness, he described as making sure “Is there someone out there trying to keep traffic? Is there someone messing with undersea cables? Is there, you know, sanctioned ships that are moving through? This domain awareness is critically important. If we can pool the resources of these four countries, it would be a benefit to the region.”
Replying to California Democratic Congressman Dr. Ami Bera’s question on the trilateral security partnerhip between Australia, UK, and US, viz. AUKUS, Rubio indicated the effort to expand it was ongoing. “We have all the work to come together with them and seek to expand it,” Rubio said.
Bera also questioned Rubio about a Quad Leaders Summit expected to be held.
“We’re hoping to be able to have that this year, maybe on the sidelines with another global gathering in the region, but nonetheless not a standalone meeting where they’re all going to be at the same time. We’re working on getting that scheduled ….,.”
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