Soothing New Delhi’s concerns regarding Washington’s growing ties with Pakistan and China, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said America’s relationship with any country will never come at the expense of India.

Speaking to The Indian Express, Rubio said Donald Trump’s comparison with the Nixon-Kissinger era in the 1970s was not fair, as the global order has changed since then. During Richard Nixon’s presidency, with Henry Kissinger as National Security Advisor, US policy toward South Asia featured a pronounced tilt toward Pakistan’s military regime led by General Yahya Khan. 

Rubio said, “I would not use the 1970s as an example because the world looks nothing like it did back then. Back then, we had the Cold War and all sorts of other dynamics that no longer exist.”

Talking about the Trump administration’s growing ties with Pakistan, especially with its defence chief Asim Munir, he said, “Our relationship with no country in the world, in any way, comes at the expense of our relationship with India… We don’t view it that way in our relationship with India.”

“I hope my visits here, our commitment to doing the trade deal, all of the engagements that we have done, and all the work that we do together, is evidence of that,” he added. 

Rubio went on to say that Washington’s engagement with Islamabad puts it in a position to help “discourage” actions that worry India.

“Pakistan is a country we have a relationship with, and we need to have a relationship with. And, in some ways, it could be a positive thing if we could help discourage actions that could potentially lead to conflict, if we could use our influence in ways that are positive,” he said. 

Rubio, who is on a two-day visit to India, also acknowledged the difficulties in ending Russia’s four-year-old war in Ukraine.

“These things are complex, and if this was an easy war to solve, it would have been solved a long time ago,” he said.