What do changes in US administrations mean for the durability of minilateral groupings like the Quad, and what follows for India's strategic autonomy?

The Quad (India, the US, Japan and Australia) is a minilateral grouping. It has no founding treaty and no secretariat, so it keeps going only as long as leaders want it to. There was no leaders' summit between Wilmington (2024) [2] and the meeting on the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit in the Philippines in November 2026 [1]. That gap shows US transitions test such groupings but do not break them.

Impact of US administration changes on Quad's durability

Sources of fragility

• Leader-dependent calendar: a summit happens only when all four leaders commit. India was due to host in 2025 [2], but that summit never took place, and the next one moved to a non-member country [1].
• Stalled deliverables: the 2024 Logistics Network pilot and Ports of the Future Partnership [2] went about two years without review by leaders.
• Shifting US priorities: a more transactional approach in Washington can push the Indo-Pacific agenda behind bilateral trade bargains.

Sources of resilience

• Bipartisan ownership: the Quad was revived at officials' level under Trump's first term (2017). It was raised to leaders' level in 2021 [2], under Biden.
• Layered tracks: Quad Foreign Ministers kept meeting, including in New Delhi (May 2026) [3], so the grouping stayed active between summits.
• Structural driver: China's assertiveness has not gone away. The Manila venue, a frontline South China Sea state, shows the strategic logic still holds [1].

What follows for India's strategic autonomy

• Benefit without binding: the Quad has no mutual-defence clause, so India gains partners without alliance obligations. The cost is that there are no guarantees either.
• Anchor projects in the IPOI: placing Quad projects under India's Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative lets them continue with other partners if summits stall.
• Back ASEAN centrality: meeting at an ASEAN venue [1] fits India's Act East Policy and the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific (AOIP).
• Fix commitments in writing: India should push for the Manila statement to name the next host and year, and to ask for progress reports on the 2024 projects [2].
• Diversify minilaterals: groupings such as I2U2 and trilaterals reduce India's dependence on any one partner's politics.

In short, US transitions make the Quad less predictable, but its strategic logic and multiple working tracks keep it alive. India should treat it as one pillar of multi-alignment: a useful tool backed by its own capabilities and the IPOI, not a crutch. That keeps India's choices autonomous and supports the goal of international peace in Article 51 of the Constitution.