Quad ministers target economic coercion in Atlanta; Rubio says leaders' summit in Manila in November

The foreign ministers of India, the United States, Japan and Australia met in Atlanta on Saturday and agreed a joint statement that criticises economic coercion, arbitrary export restrictions and overcapacity driven by "non-market practices", without naming any country. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who hosted the meeting, told reporters afterwards that a Quad leaders' summit would be held in Manila in November and announced "very soon", ANI reported. He gave no date.

External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, Australia's Penny Wong and Japan's Toshimitsu Motegi joined Rubio on the sidelines of the G20 foreign ministers' meeting, which ran in Atlanta on 30 and 31 October. It was the third time the four ministers have met this year, after New Delhi and Manila, according to ANI. The Quad's leaders have not held a summit of their own in two years, the South China Morning Post noted.

What happened

Rubio went out of his way to say the grouping was not aimed at Beijing. "The Quad is not anti-anybody. It's not a format that exists to be against any country," he said, according to ANI. He said the four countries' concerns were about "behaviours" and "activities", and added: "Now, those activities or behaviours are coming repeatedly from one country. That's going to be obvious to everybody. But it is not an anti-China or anti-anybody coalition."

The joint statement, as reported by ANI and South Korea's Herald Business, set out a list of practical projects rather than new security commitments. The official text had not been posted on the websites of India's Ministry of External Affairs or the US State Department by Sunday morning, India time, so the details below are as reported by those outlets:

• more than $85 million in technical and financial help to widen access to "trusted" artificial intelligence across the Indo-Pacific, including through a Quad AI Accelerator;
• $10 million from the US for facilities in India and South-east Asian countries that recover critical minerals from electronic waste, under a framework announced in May, plus work on easing the cross-border movement of recyclable material;
• a new effort to identify chokepoints in semiconductor and AI hardware supply chains;
• a call to protect navigation through the Strait of Hormuz, the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and criticism of tolls imposed on shipping;
• a pledge to hold online scam networks and their leaders to account, saying the scams cost the four countries tens of billions of dollars a year;
• help for Fiji to modernise its ports at Suva, Lautoka and Rokobili;
• the first exercise under the Quad's maritime surveillance initiative, planned for Sea Dragon 2027.

ANI reported that the four countries' export credit agencies would meet in Tokyo on 18 November. Herald Business reported that a first Quad Business Leaders' Forum would meet in Tokyo on 18 December. The two reports could not be reconciled from the material available, and it is not clear whether they describe one event or two.

What Jaishankar said

In a post on X after the meeting, Jaishankar listed India's priorities as "maintaining stability, driving prosperity and ensuring freedom of choice" in the Indo-Pacific, "countering non-market practices and increased economic stresses", and "developing a more contemporary QUAD agenda with a practical approach", according to ANI. He called for stronger cooperation on resilient supply chains in technology, critical minerals and energy, and for building on existing work on counter-terrorism, maritime security and capacity building.

The statement also noted India's role as a first responder in Nepal after flash floods in August, and said Australia, Japan and the US would send observers to a disaster-relief exercise India is holding in November, ANI reported.

Why it matters for India

The phrase "freedom of choice" is a familiar one in Indian diplomacy, used to signal that New Delhi will not be drawn into a bloc against any single country even as it works closely with Washington, Tokyo and Canberra. The Atlanta statement leans on economics and technology, where India has the most to gain: supply chains for critical minerals now dominated by China, AI access, and the safety of sea lanes that carry India's oil and gas.

That last point is pressing. Indian crews have been aboard several tankers attacked near the Strait of Hormuz in the past week, and a large share of India's crude oil and gas imports passes through the Gulf. A Quad statement naming Hormuz and the Red Sea gives India a multilateral platform for a concern it has raised at the G20 too, where Jaishankar said attacks on shipping threatened fuel, food and fertiliser supplies for developing countries.

A leaders' summit in Manila would be the first in two years, and would bring Prime Minister Narendra Modi together with the US, Japanese and Australian leaders under the Quad banner, though India has not said whether he will attend.

Background

The Quad, formally the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, began as a coordinated response to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, lapsed, and was revived in 2017. Its leaders first met in 2021. China has long described it as an attempt to contain it; the four members say it is about a "free and open" Indo-Pacific.

The Atlanta meeting came at a difficult moment for the wider G20. European ministers refused to pose for a group photograph with Russia's Sergei Lavrov, and the meeting was overshadowed by the US-Iran conflict and the risk to Gulf shipping. On the same trip, Rubio met his Japanese and South Korean counterparts, who reaffirmed the goal of North Korea's complete denuclearisation, the Taipei Times reported.

The SCMP has reported that the Manila summit is being planned ahead of a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Rubio's emphasis that the Quad is "not anti-China" may be read partly in that light.

What happens next

• Jaishankar travels from Atlanta to St John's, Antigua and Barbuda, to lead India's delegation at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting from 1 to 4 November, the MEA said at its briefing on 28 October.
• The White House or the Philippines is expected to announce the date of the Manila leaders' summit; Rubio said that would come "very soon".
• Export credit agencies of the four countries meet in Tokyo, according to ANI on 18 November.
• India hosts a disaster-relief exercise in November with Quad observers.