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U.S. Secretary of State Rubio meets with Indian External Affairs Minister Jaishankar, Australian Foreign Minister Wong and Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi, in Washington
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio meets with Indian External Affairs Minister Dr. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong, and Japanese Foreign Minister Iwaya Takeshi at the State Department in Washington, U.S., January 21, 2025. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz Image: Reuters/Elizabeth Frantz
politics

Quad foreign ministers meet in Washington

19 Comments
By Daphne Psaledakis, Simon Lewis and Trevor Hunnicutt

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with counterparts from Australia, India and Japan on Tuesday, a meeting he said will stress the importance of working with allies "on the things that are important to America and Americans."

Rubio, who was sworn in as secretary of state the day after President Donald Trump began his second term in office on Monday, hosted counterparts from the Quad - a grouping of four countries sharing concerns about China's growing power - at the State Department.

The ministers - Australia's Penny Wong, India's Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and Japan's Takeshi Iwaya - posed with Rubio in front of the flags of their countries before the meeting, but did not respond to questions from reporters.

Analysts have said the meeting is designed to signal that countering Beijing is a top priority for the new president, even as Trump unexpectedly held off tariffs on China on his first day back at the White House and did not single it out as a threat, raising the prospect of a rapprochement between the rivals.

"Today we’ll have a meeting with the Quad, with foreign ministers from Australia and India and Japan, to reaffirm the importance of working with allies across the world on the things that are important to America and Americans, and that’s what I’m focused on moving forward," Rubio told NBC's Today program before his swearing in.

Trump officials were working on scheduling another gathering of the foreign ministers at the White House as well, a person involved in planning meetings said.

The meetings could set the stage for a summit of leaders of the Quad countries relatively early in the Trump presidency, a person involved in the planning meetings said. Sources familiar with the planning said a meeting between Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba was possible in Washington next month.

Australia's Wong, who met her Indian and Japanese counterparts in Washington over the weekend, said the invitation for Quad foreign ministers to attend Trump's inauguration showed a dedication to close cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region.

"It's a demonstration of the collective commitment of all countries to the Quad, an iron-clad commitment in this time where close cooperation in the Indo-Pacific is so important," Wong said on Sunday.

Rubio also met separately with the three foreign ministers on Tuesday.

The Quad grouping met many times during the administration of former President Joe Biden, with a focus on Beijing's military and economic activities in the Indo-Pacific, particularly in the South China Sea where U.S. allies have pushed back against Beijing's territorial claims.

The grouping has also pledged to advance cooperation in cybersecurity to protect supply chains and critical infrastructure, including undersea cables.

For Australia, it will be important to secure assurances from Washington about the massive AUKUS defense project, designed to allow Australia to acquire nuclear-powered attack submarines and other advanced weapons such as hypersonic missiles.

China has denounced the Quad as a Cold War construct and says the AUKUS alliance would intensify a regional arms race.

© Thomson Reuters 2025.

©2025 GPlusMedia Inc.

19 Comments
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Yeah, unfortunately the US representative is just there for show. Trump probably doesn't even know it is going on.

8 ( +21 / -13 )

Quad makes me laugh..

Marco Rubio??..

(Facepalm)

LOL

-18 ( +6 / -24 )

thank got we finally have a president with a backbone

-9 ( +10 / -19 )

Dango bongToday  07:28 am JST

thank got we finally have a president with a backbone

How is that backbone working out settling the Ukraine situation in the US's favor?

4 ( +13 / -9 )

It won't be long before this thing called quad is DISOLVED and the China delusional threat is just that.

Trump view of the world is total different than Biden.

-13 ( +5 / -18 )

US will be joining BRICS before you know it

-12 ( +4 / -16 )

The US has no.moral foreign policy,it based on years of fail policies, even Biden knowed Israel committed genocide

-11 ( +4 / -15 )

The miserables they were hugging each other !

-13 ( +3 / -16 )

WoodyLeeToday  08:37 am JST

It won't be long before this thing called quad is DISOLVED and the China delusional threat is just that.

The only thing delusional is talking about the China threat as though it was delusional. QUAD isn'tgoing to get disolved, in fact will get stronger. Ties beween Pacific nations and NATO will also get stronger.

If China doesn't like it they can renounce the use of force against Taiwan and respect International Law when it comes to the South China Sea, and become a constructive member of the global community. Till then all the whining and lying isn't going to change anything.

14 ( +19 / -5 )

Another desperate attempt of the big US industrial military complex to destabilize another continent, to fill the pockets of the warlords in Wall Street, and force other countries to buy American made weapons.

As if the disasters in Eastern Europe and Middle East supported by the White House haven't killed enough innocent people, and to what result?

Greed and guns made in USA creating imaginary enemies and invasions in Asia, instead of promoting diplomacy and peace

-10 ( +3 / -13 )

Ahh... the full grouping of the US MIC investment club.

Really not a deterrence or even that effective apart from creating boring photo opportunities. Rubio has that "can't wait to bail and do something useful" look on his face.

-11 ( +2 / -13 )

Handler memo from the PLA Strategic Support Force has arrived. Keyword for all wumaos this month....MIC. Coming from the the State controlled military industrial complex that China touts.

4 ( +7 / -3 )

Handler memo from the PLA Strategic Support Force has arrived. Keyword for all wumaos this month....MIC. Coming from the the State controlled military industrial complex that China touts.

Mic drop! ;P

-5 ( +1 / -6 )

Not a rubio fan but a much needed upgrade from the previous one.

-2 ( +3 / -5 )

For Australia, it will be important to secure assurances from Washington about the massive AUKUS defense project, designed to allow Australia to acquire nuclear-powered attack submarines and other advanced weapons such as hypersonic missiles.

Australia has no need of America for hypersonic missiles. Australia has been at the forefront

of scramjet development for decades, as the US knows well. One of the carrots for AUKUS was getting hold of all of Australia's research for the US to add to its own. Both nations being well ahead of the UK in this research. Australia was the first nation to successfully test fly a scramjet in 2002.

On July 30, 2002, the University of Queensland's HyShot team (and international partners) conducted the first-ever successful test flight of a scramjet.

The team took a unique approach to the problem of accelerating the engine to the necessary speed by using a Terrier-Orionsounding rocket to take the aircraft up on a parabolic trajectory to an altitude of 314 km. As the craft re-entered the atmosphere, it dropped to a speed of Mach 7.6. The scramjet engine then started, and it flew at about Mach 7.6 for 6 seconds. [4]. This was achieved on a lean budget of just A$1.5 million (US$1.1 million), a tiny fraction of NASA's US$250 million to develop the X-43A. This involved many of the same researchers involved in the University of Queensland report in 1995 of the first development of a scramjet that achieved more thrust than drag.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scramjet_programs

6 ( +6 / -0 )

Let me introduce to you "The Quad", an India that has near zero potential to project power into the Asia Pacific Region and an Australia that is always itching for a good fight but is 10,000 kms from the economic heart of East Asia and has a tiny naval fleet which then leaves you with the USA and Japan Same as it ever was.

-4 ( +1 / -5 )

In Trumps world Australian Foreign Minister and Leader of the Senate Penny Wong only got the job because

1/she's a woman

2/She's foreign .....Chinese

3/She is gay

4/Quick Jeeves...the smelling salts...I may swoon....She is MARRIED WITH A CHILD !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Penny Wong is a hero to me and long may she represent diversity in Parliament and real life.

-6 ( +2 / -8 )

So nice to not see Blinken anymore as SoS, just saying pleasentires and being as usless as wallpaoer.

Be nice to see rhe back of Wong too.

-1 ( +3 / -4 )

2/She's foreign .....Chinese

Penny Wong is Malaysian.

"Penelope Ying-Yen Wong[8] was born on 5 November 1968 in Kota Kinabalu, the capital of Sabah, which had become part of the Federation of Malaysia in 1963.[9] Her parents were Jane (née Chapman) (died 2024), an English Australian whose forebears first reached South Australia on Cygnet in 1836,[10] and Francis Wong (1941–2023), a Malaysian Chinese"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_Wong

1 ( +2 / -1 )

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