Washington: In its first foreign policy engagement, the Donald Trump administration hosted a meeting of Quad foreign ministers where the US, Japan, India, and Australia committed to strengthening “maritime, economy and technology security in the face of increasing threats”, expressed their goal of a “free and open Indo-Pacific”, and agreed to “think bigger, deepen agenda and intensify cooperation”.

With a clear eye on China, secretary of state Marco Rubio, external affairs minister S Jaishankar, Australian foreign minister Penny Wong, and Japan’s foreign minister Takeshi Iwaya also opposed any “unilateral actions that sought to change the status quo by force or coercion” and agreed to strengthen supply chain resilience and reliability. They emphasised the principles of the rule of law, democracy, sovereignty, territorial integrity, international law, economic opportunity, and peace, stability, and security, especially in the maritime domain.

The four foreign ministers met on the eighth floor of the State Department in Washington DC on Tuesday afternoon Eastern in what was Rubio’s first official engagement as Secretary of State. The fact that the Trump administration chose to make Quad its first foreign policy engagement and that the Senate confirmed Rubio on the same evening as the Inauguration of the President so that he could, among other priorities, attend the meeting on Tuesday, was a signal noted by other ministers.

On X, Jaishankar termed the meeting “productive”. “Significant that the Quad FMM took place within hours of the inauguration of the Trump Administration. This underlines the priority it has in the foreign policy of its member states. Our wide-ranging discussions addressed different dimensions of ensuring a free, open, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific.”

The discussion themes that were made public, and the language deployed, in both the joint statement, or ministerial messages, show a strong subtext of shared concerns about China’s belligerence with neighbours, actions in the waters, weaponisation of supply chains, violation of international tribunal decisions and the law of seas, and a desire to send a message that Quad was here to stay, and had a shared commitment to an alternate democratic cooperative structure in the region.

A message to China

In the joint statement, Quad ministers said they met to reaffirm their “shared commitment to strengthening a Free and Open Indo-Pacific where the rule of law, democratic values, sovereignty, and territorial integrity are upheld and defended”. All four Quad countries are democracies and China is not; all four Quad countries have expressed concerns about China violating the sovereignty of neighbours; India on land and Japan in the waters have faced direct aggression.

The ministers then said that all four countries maintained their conviction that “international law, economic opportunity, peace, stability, and security in all domains including the maritime domain” underpin the development and prosperity of the Indo-Pacific. “We also strongly oppose any unilateral actions that seek to change the status quo by force or coercion.” China’s maritime actions in the South China Sea, and more recently with the Philippines, have generated deep concerns, as has its seemingly more aggressive intent to change the status quo vis a vis Taiwan, for its potentially destabilising implications.

In a forward-looking paragraph, the four Quad ministers then said they were “committed to strengthening regional maritime, economic, and technology security in the face of increasing threats”, as well as promoting “reliable and resilient supply chains”.

This commitment from a new US administration shows the continued commitment to build on what exists. Quad has already been working on maritime security with a maritime domain awareness initiative and joint exercises of four countries that happen under a non-Quad umbrella. With the concentration of supply chains in China and the world’s dependence on it, Quad has consistently articulated the need to diversify supply chains, a goal that aligns with the manufacturing ambitions of Quad countries. With a growing binary when it comes to choices on technology between the Western world and China, Quad also cooperates in many tech domains from telecom infrastructure to semiconductors, united by a desire to prevent Chinese tech domination and strengthen tech security. It is these domains where geopolitics is at its most contentious, and it is these domains that Quad has decided to work more closely on.

The significance and future

Setting the tone for the group in a year when India is to host the next summit, Jaishankar said that Quad countries had agreed on the “importance of thinking bigger, deepening the agenda and intensifying our collaboration”. He added that the meeting also sent a clear message that “in an uncertain and volatile world, the Quad will continue to be a force for global good”.

Wong, the Australian foreign minister, said on X, “Today’s meeting of Quad Foreign Ministers, so early in the Trump Administration’s term, demonstrates our shared determination to work together for a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific region.”

The meeting comes against the backdrop of conflicting signals from the Trump administration on how the new President will approach China. Trump spoke of a good call with Xi Jinping and how they would begin solving problems early and together and work for a more peaceful world; he overrode the US Supreme Court and US Congress to keep TikTok alive despite his party leaders warning him of national security consequences; he has also floated the idea of an early trip to China; and he did not, as anticipated, impose tariffs on China though he has mandated a study on trade ties with China.

Despite these signals, here is a measure of the bipartisan support for Quad in an otherwise divided America. One of Joe Biden’s final major diplomatic summits was with Quad leaders in his hometown of Delaware in September 2024. At the summit, Quad had announced its most ambitious initiatives so far. And in a sign of the flexibility within the group and its informal structure, India had swapped the summit with the US, and will host the Quad leaders at a summit later this year; this will make Donald Trump the first US president to visit India in the first year of his term, and the first to visit India twice. From one of Biden’s last summits, Quad has endured to becoming the Trump administration’s first major engagement and an additional glue in the India-US bilateral dynamic.