The Quad grouping of Australia, India, Japan and the United States is showing clear signs of strain, with its planned leaders' summit in Australia now uncertain and the next gathering downgraded to a foreign ministers' meeting during U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio's visit to India from May 23 to 26.
Foreign Policy analyst Sarang Shidore wrote that there is a perceptible sense that the Quad is fading away. The grouping, originally founded in 2007 to counter China, became inactive after Australia pulled back, only to be revived by President Donald Trump in 2017.
Shidore pointed to recent deterioration in U.S.-India relations as the immediate trigger, compounded by what he described as the Trump administration's extreme policy volatility. He argued that deeper structural flaws in the Quad's design have always limited its effectiveness.
The Quad has never mentioned China by name in joint statements, though it has criticized maritime coercion in ways that implicitly target Beijing. India, the only non-U.S. ally in the group, has been particularly cautious given its border clashes with China in 2017 and 2020.
Shidore questioned whether the Quad can function effectively as both a security arrangement and a provider of public goods. He noted that early U.S. readouts focused on security, yet the group soon adopted a broad agenda that has produced limited concrete results.
During the pandemic the Quad pledged at least 1.2 billion vaccine doses globally by the end of 2022 but delivered only 800 million, with the first shipments arriving more than a year late. A 2024 cancer moonshot initiative targeting cervical cancer through HPV vaccines has similarly seen slow progress, with no clear timeline mentioned in the July 2025 joint statement.
Disaster relief efforts have also fallen short of expectations. Despite tabletop exercises and responses to a 2024 landslide in Papua New Guinea and a 2025 earthquake in Myanmar, the Quad has not established a major integrated capability comparable to ASEAN's AHA Center.
Progress has been more noticeable in hard security through the Malabar naval exercises, which now include all four nations and feature advanced drills such as anti-submarine warfare. Australia joined permanently in 2020, aligning the exercise's membership with the Quad.
Shidore observed that these military activities may have limited practical value for India, whose primary concerns lie along its continental border with China and in its relationship with Pakistan rather than in potential conflict zones such as Taiwan or the South China Sea.
Regional reception has been mixed. Southeast Asian nations have remained wary of the Quad's security focus while expressing limited enthusiasm for its public goods initiatives. ASEAN statements typically avoid direct references to the Quad, mentioning only vague external partners.
Shidore suggested that China views the Quad's marginalization as further evidence that a broad U.S.-led Asian security coalition is unlikely to take hold. He said Washington's military priorities have shifted toward the first island chain, where the Philippines has become a key partner through expanded basing and joint exercises.
A newer arrangement informally called the Squad, involving the United States, Japan, Australia and the Philippines, is emerging with a clearer hard-security focus and greater geographic proximity to sensitive areas. All members are U.S. allies, allowing for more advanced military interoperability.
The recent Trump-Xi summit in Beijing has produced an economic truce and may ease tensions over Taiwan, yet activities by U.S. Indo-Pacific Command and the Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy continue in the East and South China seas. Shidore concluded that the Quad will likely continue in a diminished role as U.S.-China rivalry plays out.