Rubio, in India, Hopes To Revive ‘Quad Four’ With Japan, Australia as Counterweight to China

Whatever happened to the Quad Four? That’s a question Secretary of State Marco Rubio will be discussing Tuesday when he meets his counterparts from India, Japan, and Australia at New Delhi in a bid to resuscitate a relationship intended as a counterweight to China’s rising competition in the Indo-Pacific.For Mr. Rubio, who’s been in India since Saturday both sightseeing and meeting with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and foreign minister, Subrahmanyam Jakshankar, the challenge will be to reverse a downward trend in Indian American relations exacerbated by tariffs, concerns about China, and America’s relationship with Pakistan.At the heart of the problem is neglect of the Quad Four, short for Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, a grouping intended to bring together the leaders of its four member countries, which have not met since President Biden hosted them in his native bailiwick of Wilmington, Delaware, in 2024.The downturn in Indian-American relations may preclude the Quad Four leaders meeting in India later this year, but they’re likely to rendezvous in Australia next year.Seeing Mr. Rubio over the weekend, Mr. Jaishankar “signaled both publicly and diplomatically that deeper momentum in India-US relations would require greater American sensitivity toward India’s core national interests,” according to India’s 24-hour News 18 network. His remarks, the network reported, “were widely interpreted as a subtle reminder that the Trump 2.0 administration needs to place greater strategic emphasis on Quad, particularly as no Quad Leaders’ Summit has taken place during Trump’s current term so far.”Optics as much as talking have dominated Mr. Rubio’s first official visit to India in which he and his wife visited the Taj Mahal, among other sights. Mr. Rubio got the relationship slightly wrong before leaving Washington, however, when he described India as “a great ally and partner.” India prides itself as “non-aligned,” especially since Russia remains its greatest source of aircraft and arms.Competing with Russia in building trust and good will, Mr. Rubio now must repair a relationship damaged by Mr. Trump’s punitively high tariffs and then by his claim to have stopped a nuclear war between India and Pakistan, both of which are nuclear powers. Mr. Trump initially imposed a tariff of 50 percent on imports from India in retaliation for India importing Russian oil and closing its markets to a wide range of competitive American products. Temporarily waiving objections to Russian oil imports, the president then lowered tariffs to 18 percent before the Supreme Court ruled he did not have the power to dictate rates.Over the past 25 years, “successive U.S. administrations, Republican and Democrat alike, have wooed India as a potential counterweight to China in Asia,” reads a commentary by a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, Sadanand Dhume, “but today the relationship appears rudderless.”Aside from differences over tariffs, relations between Washington and New Delhi went awry in April 2025 after terrorists slaughtered 26 Indian tourists on a sightseeing trip to the Pakistani-held portion of Kashmir. After India blamed Pakistan for the episode for which a terrorist group claimed responsibility, the incident exploded into one of the worst border wars between the two countries. The two sides fired missiles and artillery shells, killing many more before agreeing on a ceasefire 16 days later.Mr. Trump’s claim to have masterminded the ceasefire angered Mr. Modi. Making matters worse, writes Mr. Dhume, Mr. Trump “lavished praise on Pakistan’s de facto military ruler, Field Marshal Asim Munir,” who “is widely reviled in India” for the attack.Mr. Rubio, in New Delhi, denied, however, that Indian hatred of Pakistan carried over to Pakistan’s role in negotiations for ending the Iran war. India was “always pointing to the fact that there are armed terrorist groups operating from Pakistani territory that target India,” India’s Times Now network quoted him as saying. “But as far as the role they played as a mediator and a facilitator in the Iran situation, it never came up … their issue with Pakistan is different.”Perhaps more importantly than Pakistan, Communist China also figures into Mr. Rubio’s visit. Indians are concerned about Mr. Trump’s relations with China, with which India has had frequent border conflicts, in the aftermath of the president’s visit with China’s President Xi Jinping.“India has been increasingly important to American foreign policy calculations in 2026 as a counterweight to Chinese military and economic assertiveness across the Indo-Pacific,” writes Ewan Scott on the website Foreign Policy Journal. Mr. Rubio’s “willingness to undertake a four-day in-country visit signals a level of personal engagement that Washington’s key regional partners have been seeking.”

Rubio, in India, Hopes To Revive ‘Quad Four’ With Japan, Australia as Counterweight to China

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