Jaishankar joins Quad talks amid strains in India-US ties

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will join Quad counterparts in Atlanta for talks expected to prepare the ground for a leaders’ summit in Manila. The meeting comes amid strains in India-US ties and renewed focus on maritime and economic security.

Atlanta: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will join his US, Japanese and Australian counterparts for a Quad foreign ministers’ meeting here on Saturday. Experts said the talks would help lay the groundwork for a long-stalled Quad leaders’ summit and test the group’s cohesion amid strains in India-US ties.

The meeting, hosted by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the sidelines of the G20 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, is scheduled for 9 am (local time) on Saturday.

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Rubio will then take part in the G20’s third session, on supply chains, and deliver closing remarks at 10 am, before holding a press availability on the ministerial at 12.30 pm, the schedule said.

Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi and Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong are in Atlanta for the G20 talks.

“Together, we will advance practical cooperation on regional security, maritime security and economic resilience in support of a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Wong said in a statement ahead of the visit.

Announcing EAM Jaishankar’s visit on Wednesday, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said: “On the sidelines of this meeting, he will also participate in a QUAD Foreign Ministers’ Meeting and also have several bilateral engagements with his counterparts.”

Farwa Aamer, Director of South Asia Initiatives at the Asia Society Policy Institute, said the ministers “are expected to lay the groundwork for the long-stalled leaders’ summit in Manila next month”.

“Despite the bilateral trust issues that have seeped in over the past year, particularly between India and the United States, the Quad is that one vehicle where you see officials still championing alignment on the Indo-Pacific, supply chains, and economic security,” Aamer said.

She cautioned that the meeting “may, however, remain more of an optics game”, noting that much of the Quad agenda was “being worked out bilaterally between its members”, from critical minerals to energy.

Emma Chanlett-Avery, ASPI’s Senior Director of Political-Security Affairs, said a leaders’ meeting “will be welcome news to Tokyo, Canberra, and Delhi”. But she warned that it “could be overshadowed by a potential trilateral summit with Trump, Putin, and Xi just a day later, presenting a very different vision of a world order dominated by authoritarian leaders”.

Maritime security is set to feature prominently. At the G20’s first plenary on Friday, EAM Jaishankar stressed the “Urgent need to preserve the freedom of navigation and ensure cessation of attacks within the framework of international law, especially UNCLOS”, and said the “Global South is disproportionately bearing the consequences of attacks on civilian shipping and seafarers”, according to his post on X.

At the second plenary, on energy, EAM Jaishankar “Reaffirmed that India needs reliable and predictable LPG supplies for its clean cooking needs”, he posted.

Rubio said on X that he had told the G20 that “maritime and food security drive economic security”. On Friday evening, Rubio, Motegi and South Korea’s Cho Hyun signed a memorandum creating a Trilateral Arctic Pacific Partnership, Rubio said.

Wong said Australia had joined the European Union-led “No Fees/No Tolls” pledge, “opposing unlawful fees and tolls that would undermine freedom of navigation and set a dangerous precedent for international shipping”.

The Quad meeting comes a week after Rubio’s visit to India. On Friday, EAM Jaishankar met the foreign ministers of Argentina, Canada, Mexico, Brazil and Germany on the sidelines. Jaishankar travels from Atlanta to Antigua and Barbuda for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting from November 1 to 4.