US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will attend NATO foreign ministers talks in Sweden on Friday before travelling to India for his first visit since President Donald Trump returned to office.

The State Department announced the trip on Tuesday. The back-to-back visits come amid tensions within NATO over burden sharing and a recent strain in US-India ties.

What will Rubio discuss at the NATO meeting in Sweden?

Rubio will attend talks among NATO foreign ministers in Helsingborg, Sweden, focused on defense investment and burden sharing within the alliance.

The meeting is intended to prepare for a NATO summit in Turkey in July, which Trump is expected to attend. Rubio will also meet Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte on the sidelines.

Trump recently withdrew 5,000 US troops from Germany, a move that deepened European concerns already heightened by Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Trump has long argued that the United States carries an unfair share of NATO’s collective defense burden. The withdrawal came shortly after a public fallout with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who had made remarks critical of Trump’s war with Iran.

Why has the US-India relationship been under strain?

Trump grew frustrated with India last year and temporarily imposed punishing tariffs after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi declined to credit Trump with ending a short war between India and Pakistan. That conflict was triggered by a massacre of mostly Hindu civilians in Indian-administered Kashmir. The rift marked a rare cooling in a relationship that US presidents across partisan lines have cultivated for decades.

Pakistan, by contrast, has actively courted Trump’s favor. Islamabad has called Trump deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize and recently volunteered to mediate in ending the Iran war. Vice President JD Vance visited Pakistan for Iran talks, and Trump returned last week from an upbeat trip to China, a country whose rise had previously been a shared concern binding India and the United States together.

What is on the agenda for Rubio’s India visit?

Rubio will travel to India from May 23 to 26, with stops in Kolkata, Agra, Jaipur and New Delhi. Reuters reported that talks will cover energy security, trade and defense. The US Embassy in India said the visit would include ministerial Quad meetings and high-level engagement, making it a substantive diplomatic stop rather than a symbolic one.

The four-city itinerary is unusual for Rubio, who typically keeps a rapid travel pace. In addition to the capital, he will visit Agra, home to the Taj Mahal, and the palace-filled city of Jaipur. The breadth of the itinerary signals an effort to give the visit political weight beyond standard diplomatic meetings in New Delhi.