With Delhi's temperature soaring past 40 degrees Celsius, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Saturday kept his remarks brief while inaugurating the new US Embassy Support Annex building, and joked about the intense heat.

"It's an honour to be here today, and I wanted to keep this (press conference) brief because it's hot. There's a difference between human hot and this hot. It should be getting cooler by now. I don't want to keep you here for much longer," Rubio said.

Braving the heat, Rubio, in his brief remarks, underscored growing India-US ties, saying the partnership had deepened through trade and security cooperation, including over $20 billion in Indian investments in the US and expanded Indo-Pacific military exercises. He described India as an "incredibly important partner", highlighting the long-standing rapport between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump.

Rubio is on a four-day visit to India, first landing in Kolkata before coming to Delhi, where he held talks with PM Modi.

India at cornerstone of US approach to Indo-Pacific: Rubio

Asserting that the India-US partnership continues to deepen, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Saturday said that both countries will have some "exciting and new announcements" to make about the strengthening of ties in the coming months.

Rubio recalled that the first major discussions he held after being sworn in as the US Secretary of State in January 2025 were during the Quad Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Washington DC, a grouping that also includes India.

External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar and Rubio had also met shortly after the Quad meeting, which was the first foreign policy engagement not only for Rubio but also for the Trump administration in its second term.

"A lot of people aren't aware of this, but I was sworn in as Secretary of State... within (an) hour, I was at the State Department... My first meeting, my very first meeting officially as Secretary of State, was a meeting of the Quad. We were going to renew that. We did it again last year in a different setting, and we chose to do it here," Rubio said on Saturday.

"We wanted to do it here not just because of our commitment to that structure of work, but also as a tangible sign of what an important role India plays in the United States and in our posture and approach to the Indo-Pacific," he asserted.

He highlighted that the "personal relationship" between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump continues to solidify India-US ties.

"Anchoring that is the relationship between the President and the Prime Minister. It's a personal relationship that dates back to the first administration, when the President had a chance to visit here. It has carried over into this second administration, and you can just see the connection between them. I think that's incredibly important. The connection between leaders is incredibly important. These are two very serious leaders focused not just on the short term, but on the long term," he said.

The US Secretary of State asserted that the partnership between Washington and New Delhi has deepened "in ways that don't often make headlines or aren't splashy", but are important, real, tangible and enduring.

"We've expanded commercial ties now with more than $20 billion in investments from Indian companies in the United States. We've deepened a security partnership through military exercises in the Indo-Pacific. And of course, as part of that, we recognise that an orderly and secure consular system is vital to solidifying this important relationship. That's why we're introducing a new America First visa scheduling tool that prioritises business professionals that strengthen these ties," Rubio stated.

He ended his remarks by reiterating that the partnership between the US and India remains an "incredibly important" one.

"It's the reason why I'm here on this visit, to reaffirm those ties, to build upon them. And we think in the months ahead, we're going to have even more exciting and new announcements to make about the development and strengthening of the relationship between the two countries," Rubio remarked.