Trump Admin To Convene QUAD Foreign Ministers Meeting On Tuesday: Report

The foreign ministers of QUAD countries will meet on January 21, day after Trump's inauguration, marking the new administration's first major interaction with foreign leaders.

Washington:The foreign ministers of QUAD countries – Australia, India, Japan and the US– will meet here on January 21, a day after the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 47th US President, making it one of the first foreign policy acts of the new administration, a media report said Friday.

Trump will be sworn in for a second term on Monday. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong, and Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya will be representing their respective countries at the presidential inauguration.

The QUAD ministerial meeting is intended to signal that “the US commitment to the Indo-Pacific won’t change under the new administration,” Politico reported, quoting a person familiar with the matter. This is expected to be the first major interaction and meeting of the new administration with foreign leaders.

Marco Rubio is expected to be confirmed by Congress as the new US Secretary of State by then and is likely to be sworn in on Monday evening. This is expected to be Rubio’s first foreign policy meeting after his swearing-in.

The QUAD foreign ministers meeting is a good sign and shows continuity, Dhruva Jaishankar, executive director of ORF America told PTI in an interview.

“The Quad restarted under Trump in his first term. That seems to be a positive sign, but perhaps it's also showing that this is the US that knows that it is in a much more competitive landscape. And this idea that we had in the 1990s and early 2000s that they could take the rest of the world for granted, is no longer there,” he said.