Australia has reaffirmed its strong backing for the Quad, urging partners—especially the United States—to stay focused on shared objectives as tensions between Washington and New Delhi escalate.
India is scheduled to host the Quad summit later this year, which U.S. President Donald Trump was expected to attend. But relations have soured since Trump imposed a 50 percent tariff on India, along with secondary sanctions for purchasing Russian crude.
“Australia is a strong supporter of the Quad. We will leave to others to engage on bilateral issues that they want to deal with. But it will be good for all of us to remember what we share—and we do have a lot of shared objectives around the Indo-Pacific,” Foreign Minister Penny Wong told StratNews Global in Canberra.
She added: “We are Quad partners not just because we are Quad partners. We are Quad partners because we have shared strategic objectives.”
Since Trump’s return to the White House in January, Quad foreign ministers—India, Australia, the U.S. and Japan—have met twice, agreeing that India would host the next leaders’ summit. The last summit was in September 2024.
With ties between Modi and Trump fraying, however, questions have arisen about whether the Quad could stumble again, as it did after its ad-hoc formation in 2004 before being revived in 2017 in response to China’s growing assertiveness.
“India makes a very important point that there should be stability in the Indo-Pacific… We need to make sure we focus on that,” Wong said, adding that members are working on “how to prioritize our focus areas particularly with the new U.S. administration.”
“One of the strengths of the Quad is that different countries bring different perspectives,” she noted. “Japan has a clear view of North Asia, the U.S. is such a great power, India brings an Indian Ocean perspective, and then there is Australia.”
On China, Wong said Australia’s stance is to “cooperate where we can, disagree where we must, and engage in national interest.” She added: “China is a great power. Some of its interests don’t accord with Australia’s, so we know there will be differences. We also have areas where we can cooperate… From my observation, that’s the approach India seems to take.”
On U.S. tariffs, Wong was clear: “We don’t support tariffs. We believe in the logic of the first world economic order. We see trade as a critical enabler of peace.”
She stressed that Canberra seeks a “deep, strong, trusted partnership” with New Delhi, one that can “influence” a reshaping regional and global order.
“We want to work with India because we see a lot of convergence and alignment in the outcomes we want from that reshaping,” she said.
