The Quad, Reset – Analysis – Eurasia Review

By Rajiv Bhatia

The over-two-decade-long story of the Quad has been marked by ups and downs. It is a unique gathering of four maritime democracies, three of which are treaty allies (the U.S., Japan, and Australia) and a common strategic partner (India). This informal plurilateral grouping aims to constrain China’s assertive role and coercive policies.

True to these two goals, the Quad Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Delhi on May 26, 2026, produced a series of outcomes and sought to project that its members remain committed to deepening cooperation in specific areas through practical measures. This is no mean achievement, in light of the strains and tensions that marked one particular bilateral, that of India and the U.S., in the preceding year, and talk of a G2, a duopoly between the U.S. and China that U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping have repeatedly indulged in over the past year.

The meeting in Delhi was the third for the Quad since the Trump administration 2.0 commenced its innings and the 11th since the series of ministerial meetings began in September 2019. However, there has been no leaders’ meeting since September 2024, when the US hosted the summit in Wilmington under former U.S. President Joe Biden’s leadership. A glaring institutional ambiguity persists. The Quad appears to have abandoned the rotational principle, and India’s chairship of the grouping has continued since 2024, but it could host the ministerial meeting only this week – and the prospect of India hosting the long-pending summit remains uncertain.

What exactly has the Delhi meeting achieved? The answer should be assessed, keeping in mind the specific context, i.e., key developments in the preceding year: India-U.S. relations are suffering from a series of public differences over tariffs and policy issues concerning Pakistan, Russia, and China; U.S. efforts to woo China that resulted in limited success at best at the U.S.-China summit in mid-May 2026; the Gulf War that saw the three partners (India, Australia, and Japan) refusing to follow the U.S. lead; and high-profile diplomatic exchanges underlining the growing proximity between Europe and India.

To assess the meeting’s outcomes, a critical, holistic review of four documents is essential. These are the joint statement, the statement on Indo-Pacific energy security, the Quad Critical Minerals Initiatives Framework, and the factsheet issued in Delhi.

The joint statement brings the Indo-Pacific back on the table, reaffirming the members’ commitment to “a free and open Indo-Pacific”, and allows countries to determine ”their own paths”. Deeply conscious of the adverse implications of the Gulf conflict for the Indo-Pacific, the foreign ministers reiterated the importance of adhering to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). They specifically upheld navigational rights and freedoms and “uninterrupted flow of global commerce” through the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea. In the same breath, they expressed deep concern about the situation in the East and South China Seas, indirectly criticising China for its “dangerous and coercive actions”.

The members elaborated their shared position on the four pillars of the Quad’s current mandate: maritime and transnational security, economic prosperity and security, critical and emerging technology, and humanitarian assistance and emergency response. The document ends with a clear strategic message about the members’ commitment to “a region where all countries can prosper free from coercion”.

The next two documents address the specific issues of energy security and critical minerals. The Quad lists a set of fundamental principles, in light of recent “shifts in the global energy landscape and escalating geopolitical complexities”. At the top of the list is the reiteration of a strong commitment “to ensure well-functioning, stable, transparent, secure and resilient energy markets”. The members are set to identify areas of cooperation based on these principles and plan to convene a Quad Fuel Security Forum to coordinate high-level discussions.

The critical minerals framework is the central outcome of the Delhi meeting. The framework to develop four-country cooperation covers three key areas. Under investment and project development, the partners aim to mobilise $20 billion in government and private-sector support to strengthen critical minerals supply chains, including mining, processing, and recycling. The other areas include regulatory alignment and overall environment and recycling and recovery of critical minerals. How far the member governments can deliver on this important dimension will be watched closely within the region and beyond.

Finally, the Factsheet, also a negotiated document, is a statement of the Quad’s achievements in the past year, including the launch of the Indo-Pacific Maritime Surveillance Collaboration (IPMSC), the expansion of the Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness (IPMDA), and the resultant development of a comprehensive Common Operating Picture (COP). An important new announcement was the plan for cooperation between the Quad and the government of Fiji to jointly advance port infrastructure and related activities in Fiji. Clearly, China’s activities in the South Pacific loom large in the background.

It is evident that a well-prepared meeting has produced concrete outcomes. Yet, scepticism about the Quad seems to prevail. Aware of this, the Ministry of External Affairs stated that, in fact, their work had increased, not declined, and stressed that the US “continues to remain engaged in the Quad”.

Three developments may reduce the scepticism and increase public confidence in the Quad. First, the many initiatives under previous Quad meetings, like the Quad scholarships, two workshops on counter-terrorism held in 2025, various fellowship programmes, including in STEM subjects, and undersea cable connectivity in the Indo-Pacific, especially the South Pacific, must be audited and completed. Second, the U.S.’s contribution to the Delhi meeting’s outcomes needs a public endorsement by the U.S. president. Thirdly, the U.S. government should facilitate India hosting the next summit in 2026 or early 2027 on its soil, which both the other two members – Japan and Australia – already endorse. That will send a message in the region that the Quad is serious, its reset is credible, and its actions have teeth.

Finally, it is important for the three partners to remember this: without India, there is no Quad.