As External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar travels to the US to attend US President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the Quad grouping’s foreign ministers are expected to meet in Washington, DC, on January 20.
It is anticipated that on January 21, the Quad foreign ministers from the United States, Japan, Australia, and India would meet for the first time under the Trump 2.0 administration.
According to Randhir Jaiswal, a spokesman for the Ministry of External Affairs, the four ministers are anticipated to attend the inauguration.
S. Jaishankar, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong, and Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya will get the chance to meet US Secretary of State nominee Marco Rubio during the inauguration.
Rubio, a well-known China hawk, presented a bill in July of last year that would have given India the same access to technology transfers as friends like South Korea, Japan, Israel, and NATO partners.
Importantly, India is not included in the initial group of 18 US partners who are unrestricted in the Biden administration’s recently published regulatory framework on the export of AI software. The great majority of countries in Tier 2, including India, will have restrictions on the amount of processing power they can purchase from US companies if they are able to host it in secure environments.
Rubio’s Bill sought to help India deal with threats to its territorial integrity and aims to prevent Pakistan from receiving security aid if it is shown to be funding terrorism against India.
According to Rubio, China is actively enlarging its territory in the Indo-Pacific area and attempting to obstruct the independence and sovereignty of US regional allies.
His Bill had stated that the US-India alliance is essential to fending off Communist China’s hegemony. Increased military, diplomatic, economic, and strategic connections with New Delhi are also encouraged.
In the Indo-Pacific, the quad is perceived as a response to China’s increasing assertiveness. Trump, who brought the Quad back to life during his first term, is now threatening to raise tariffs on China, which is likely to increase tensions on both the strategic and economic fronts.
Rubio criticized the Barack Obama administration for ignoring Indo-US relations in an opinion piece he wrote in September 2014, while Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in Washington, DC.
Officials from India and the departing Joe Biden administration have communicated with Marco Rubio’s campaign and the Trump team over the continuation of the US-Indian efforts. iCET, or the Initiative for Critical and Emerging Technologies, is one example.
Trump made history during his first term by naming China as a rival and strategic danger. In 2017, he also resurrected the Quad grouping. President Joe Biden upped and carried on this.
Other than NSA-designate Mike Waltz, Jaishankar is also anticipated to meet Vice President J D Vance and his wife, Usha Vance, who is of Indian descent. In the final week of December, Waltz was in the United States, where he had met him.
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