One of the Trump administration’s first foreign policy acts, less than a day after the inauguration, was convening the Quad Foreign Ministers’ Meeting (FMM) on January 21. The FMM involved wide-ranging discussions addressing different dimensions of the Indo-Pacific, culminating with a consensus on the salience of “thinking bigger,” and a concise joint statement. The joint statement, relatively shorter than each of its precedents, entailed changes on at least three counts.
Shifting Rhetoric
First, a noteworthy and positive shift was using the phrase “security in all domains.” This change was perhaps long overdue, since the Quad’s agenda is not confined to traditional security issues but spans various nontraditional security areas including health security, climate change, cybersecurity, and critical and emerging technologies (CET). The shift from previous statements is also crucial from the perspective of developing nations, as their concerns center around climate change, health, and interest in leveraging digital public infrastructure and AI systems.
Second, the statement excludes any reference to the Association for Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), let alone “unwavering support” for “ASEAN centrality,” or ASEAN-led regional architecture, which was a regular feature of
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