Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be in Manila, the capital of the Philippines, on November 16-17 to attend the India-Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), and East Asia Summits. He will also attend the meeting of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad, along with US President Donald Trump, Australian Prime Minister (PM) Anthony Albanese, and Japanese PM Sanae Takaichi on Tuesday.
This will be the grouping’s first summit meeting since September 2024, which will take place amid a sense that the White House, under Trump, has lost interest in sustaining the platform because of its embrace of Beijing.
On Sunday, US Assistant Secretary of State Dylan Johnson rejected an analysis in US media outlet Politico that Trump and his administration have weakened the grouping. The report argued Trump’s embrace of Beijing and his tariff wars have undermined the Quad. He described the analysis as “an utterly ridiculous take” and “fake news”. “And we are working to formalise a Quad Leaders’ Summit at Asean next week,” Johnson tweeted.
He said US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has held five meetings of Quad foreign ministers over the past two years, with three meetings taking place in the past six months.
As in the previous India-Asean Summits, a set of practical initiatives and programmes are announced for furthering practical cooperation with the region and deepening institutional linkages. However, the negotiations on the review of the ASEAN-India Trade in Goods Agreement (AITIGA) have been slow and time-consuming, and unlikely to be concluded anytime soon. India is instead pursuing bilateral treaties with the Asean member countries.
The annual Asean Summit opened on Sunday, and the discussions will cover the conflict in West Asia. The Asean leaders are likely to renew calls for self-restraint and peaceful resolutions of conflicts, including longstanding disputes in the South China Sea and a civil war in Myanmar.
Canadian PM Mark Carney and Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signalled closer ties between the two countries at the meet. Carney announced funding of as much as C$560 million ($392 million) over four years to a Brazil-led global financing project for forests.
Carney and Lula combined efforts with the European Union and Kenya in an initiative called Partners for Multilateralism, or P4M, to foster global cooperation, seeking to counter the transactional diplomacy under Trump.
Speaking to reporters, Lula said Brazil’s approach to Trump’s tariffs was that “instead of weeping or begging the US government,” it salvaged its position by diversifying trading partners.
