Though India holds the rotating Chair of Quad (Quadrilateral Security Dialogue comprising the US, India, Japan and Australia) for the period 2024-26, it has not yet succeeded in holding a full-fledged Quad Summit (in which Heads of States also attend for dealing with strategic issues). Since the process of India demitting the Quad chairship to Australia is to start after mid-2026, the possibility of hosting a Quad Summit under India’s chairship, in addition to the usual Quad Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, may become almost impossible. This also reveals the emerging trend towards a decline in the geostrategic role of Quad in the days ahead .
Obviously, the Modi regime, in tune with Hindutva’s inherent servility to US imperialism, has been clinging on to the apron strings of the Trump regime. In spite of a series of issues such as the US regime’s most undignified deportation of Indian migrants, unilateral super-imposition of tariffs, Trump’s repeated claims on his diktats in ending Operation Sindoor, sanctions on Indian import of Russian oil, etc., the Modi government has been pursuing a ‘more loyal than the king’ approach to US. More significantly, so far, the Modi government has not come forward with a statement even formally criticising the illegal and unprovoked aggression on Iran by the US-Zionist axis of evil, which is most hated and disliked by the comity of nations today.
However, in gross disregard of India’s role as a junior partner of the US, and also as the latter’s launching pad in its machinations against China, the Trump regime has been earnestly working to have a bilateral deal with China. In the process, the US has undermined the undeclared but intrinsic aim of using Quad to challenge the growing role of China in the Indo-Pacific. For instance, the outcome of Trump’s recent high-level meeting with Xi in Beijing, has been a further assertiveness of China in the region, including a sidelining of Quad itself. As is obvious, taking advantage of Trump’s ignominious position in the Middle East following Iran’s heroic resistance against the US-Zionist axis, and due to growing isolation of the US at a global level, Trump is forced to recognise the strategic position of China in the Asia-Pacific, and has to content with trade in critical minerals and certain economic concessions from China. In the case of India, this is like adding insult to injury, since Australia and Japan, the other two US partners in Quad, are appropriately accommodated by the US through strategic military alliances such as AUKUS and the decades-old Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security respectively. On the other hand, India’s unconditional allegiance to US -Zionist axis, as manifested through the Trump-Netanyahu-Modi fascist alliance, without yielding anything to India, has exposed it before the international community as a whole.
In this context, India’s continuing in Quad means adjusting its priorities as necessitated by the requirements of the shift in Sino-US contradictions, and remain as a mere regional appendage of US foreign policy on the one hand, and serving US economic interests as best as it can, on the other. For instance, the Quad Foreign Ministers’ meeting held in India, in which US Secretary of State Marco Rubio also participated, clearly reflected this shifting orientation of the Quad. Though the joint Statement issued after the meeting shows no dearth of rhetoric on geopolitical issues, it took adequate precaution not to provoke China, especially in the context of Trump’s Beijing visit and trade deals signed with China. In fact, instead of pressurizing India regarding the geopolitical issues in the Indo-Pacific, the main task of Rubio during his India visit was to ensure India’s commitment to import $500 billion worth of American goods over five years. Revealingly, the so-called “Make in India” that Modi initiated in 2014 had already become “Made in China” during his first term itself. Now in view of the abject neocolonial surrender to US, this trade deal is now going to transform “Make in India” into ” Made in USA”. To put it differently, the US is now shifting the Quad from geopolitics to geoeconomics, which is set to make India a dumping ground of US products. No doubt, this is a tragic shame for the people of India.
(Editorial : Red Star Monthly, June 2026)
