• The foreign ministers of the Quad grouping met in Washington on July 1 to firm up a broad agenda for the bloc's annual summit in India later this year.

• The meeting was attended by India’s Minister of External Affairs S. Jaishankar, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong and her Japanese counterpart Takeshi Iwaya.

• The ministers condemned the Pahalgam terror attack in the strongest terms and strongly pitched for action against cross-border terrorism.

• The ministers welcomed recent and upcoming activities conducted by the four countries and in cooperation with partners to advance a free and open Indo-Pacific. 

• They announced key initiatives to strengthen maritime and transnational security, economic prosperity and security, critical and emerging technology, and support humanitarian assistance and emergency response across the region.

Quad Critical Minerals Initiative

• Quad foreign ministers announced the launch of the Quad Critical Minerals Initiative, an ambitious expansion of partnership to strengthen economic security and collective resilience by collaborating on securing and diversifying critical mineral supply chains. 

• This new initiative, alongside the high-impact programmes and outcomes the Quad is realising, will enable the four countries to bring economic opportunity and prosperity to its people and the region.

• The Quad Critical Minerals Initiative will strengthen cooperation on priorities such as securing and diversifying reliable supply chains, and electronic waste (e-waste) critical minerals recovery and re-processing. 

• The initiative will expand the Quad’s cooperation on supply chain resilience measures for critical minerals, and we look forward to coordinating with private sector partners to facilitate increased investments.

Other key points of the meeting:

• Quad will formally launch the Quad Ports of the Future Partnership by hosting a transportation and logistics conference with Indo-Pacific partners in Mumbai in October 2025. 

• The conference will increase knowledge, facilitate dialogue, and exchange experiences on advanced ports and logistics practices, and mobilise government and private sector investments in quality port infrastructure development. 

• This will complement the work Quad partners have done to boost infrastructure expertise across the Indo-Pacific region through the Quad Infrastructure Fellowships Program.

• The ministers plan to advance the Quad partnership on cable connectivity and resilience. This year, the US and India will host an undersea cables forum with participation from Quad partners to identify opportunities for digital infrastructure collaboration. This forum will encourage regulatory harmonisation which supports more efficient access by Quad partner companies to identify opportunities for digital infrastructure collaboration.

(The author is a trainer for Civil Services aspirants.)