The next Quad leaders’ summit is unclear, raising questions about the group’s future

Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong, Foreign Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio attend a joint press conference after the Quad Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in New Delhi May 26, 2026 | Photo credit: Sushil Kumar Verma

The Quad foreign ministers’ meeting ended on Tuesday (May 26, 2026) with no clarity on when the next Quad summit, which was supposed to be held in India, would be scheduled. This has led to speculation that the Quad may now return to ministerial dialogue as it did before the 2021 upgrade.

Previous Quad joint statements have always designated the country that will host the next leaders’ summit. However, a statement issued after a meeting between Foreign Minister S Jaishankar, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong, Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio only referred to them as “looking forward to the next summit”.

The four foreign ministers meet for updates

Pushed to the sidelines

While the four FMs did not address the press directly after the meeting as they did at the convention, the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Australian Minister and the Japanese Foreign Ministry held separate briefings during the day, dispelling questions about whether the Quad had lost some of its importance and whether the group’s leaders were now more involved in other multilateral formations.

Sources said Australia will now host the next meeting of foreign ministers as India hands over the chairmanship of the grouping, and the summit could now be held on the sidelines of other multilateral meetings where all four leaders may be present later this year, such as the UN General Assembly or the G-20 summit in the US in December. While US President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi will be at the G-7 meeting in France in June and Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a special invitee, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has not been invited.

Difficulty with planning

“The schedules of leaders are always very difficult to determine,” MEA Joint Secretary for the Americas (AMS) K. Nagaraj Naidu explained at a meeting briefing. He answered a series of questions on the issue but did not say whether there was still a chance that the summit, which was supposed to be held in India in 2024 and then in 2025, could be held in 2026.

“Obviously that depends on the availability of the leaders, but we’re looking forward to (the summit),” Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong told a group of reporters. “Meanwhile, three Quad meetings of foreign ministers in a very short time demonstrate the commitment of all countries,” she added, referring to Quad FMM meetings in January and July 2025 ahead of Tuesday’s meeting. When asked by The Hindu whether the absence of a Summit-level Quad meeting indicated a downgrade of the grouping, Ms Wong said she would be “offended to say that anything happening in Australia is a downgrade”.

Doubts about US commitment

Japan’s official spokesman, Toshihiro Kitamura, also gave a noncommittal response but denied that the US under Mr Trump was slowing Quad engagements because of its closer relationship with China and its plans to host Chinese President Xi Jinping in Washington on 24 September. Quad. “However, I would like to emphasize that as we have seen, the commitment of the US is still ongoing,” he said.

While Mr. Rubio and U.S. officials left India directly after the Quad meeting on Tuesday morning and held no briefing in Delhi, the U.S. secretary of state consistently deflected questions about the U.S. commitment to the Quad, given Mr. Trump’s recent failure to mention the grouping, which was revived in 2017, during his first term as president. Mr. Rubio said he held a four-member cabinet meeting almost immediately after being sworn in in January 2025 and called another in July 2025 in Washington.

Echoing that sentiment, Ms. Wong said that given recent developments, the US president is “very deeply engaged” in West Asia at the moment, adding that there have been more Quad meetings at the FM level in the past year than at any other time.

Published – 26 May 2026 21:14 IST