New Delhi: The foreign ministers of the Quad on May 26 unveiled a series of initiatives on maritime surveillance, energy security, critical minerals and Pacific infrastructure, as the grouping sought to project renewed relevance amid growing questions about its future and the continuing disruption in the Strait of Hormuz.The meeting on a sweltering Delhi morning came as the Quad neared two years since its last leaders’ summit.The joint statement issued afterwards said the ministers looked forward to “the convening of the Quad Leaders’ Summit” but named no host and set no date. The July 2025 statement had committed the grouping to a summit “hosted by India later this year”.While the ministers publicly stressed that the grouping was delivering “concrete” and “practical” outcomes in their public remarks, none directly addressed the absence of a summit or announced when the next leaders’ meeting would take place. This is an omission that stood out given that hosting the summit has been India’s responsibility since it assumed the Quad chair in 2024.In post-meeting briefings, none of the four delegations offered a timeline.The summit “obviously depends on the availability of leaders”, Australian foreign minister Penny Wong said at her press conference, adding that “there’s quite a lot happening in the world, and obviously [US] President [Donald] Trump is very deeply engaged at the moment on these issues in the Middle East”.At the Japanese foreign ministry’s briefing, press secretary Toshihiro Kitamura said “the date is not decided yet”. Additional secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) Nagaraj Naidu noted that India “continues to remain the chair” but did not offer a date either. He also did not rule out the possibility when asked whether the summit might be held on the sidelines of a multilateral gathering rather than as a standalone event.To repeated questions about Trump’s conspicuous silence on the Quad, the senior Indian diplomat asserted that Washington “continues to remain engaged in the Quad”.Tuesday’s meeting was itself originally scheduled to be held in Australia, as the July 2025 joint statement had indicated, but was moved to New Delhi. Despite holding the Quad chair since 2024, India had until Tuesday not hosted any high-level meetings. Both foreign ministers’ meetings held in 2025 took place in Washington.‘The Iranian closure of the Strait of Hormuz’Hours before the Quad ministers met in India, the US launched fresh “self-defence” strikes on Iranian boats and missile sites in southern Iran, targeting vessels allegedly laying mines near the Strait of Hormuz amid continuing tensions despite ongoing negotiations over reopening the strategic waterway. Earlier on Monday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the Strait of Hormuz “has to remain open, one way or the other”.Against that backdrop, much of the discussion focused on the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas passed before Iran closed it in response to the strikes that began on February 28. The US also updated the other three Quad members on the state of play on the negotiations for a deal with Tehran. In this image posted on May 26, 2026, From left, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio during the Quad Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, in New Delhi. Photo: @DrSJaishankar/X via PTI“We spent some time on the question of safe and unimpeded maritime commerce and reaffirmed the significance of scrupulously observing international law,” said external affairs minister S. Jaishankar in his prepared press statement after the conclusion of the meeting. He added that the meeting’s “deliberations touched on the current energy and fertiliser availability”.He didn’t mention Iran or the Strait of Hormuz explicitly, but the context due to the latest developments was clear.Among the four ministers, the Australian foreign minister was the most direct. “We know the consequences for our region of the Iranian closure of the Strait of Hormuz and what that means for our energy security, for our economies and for our people,” Wong told reporters.She recognised “the efforts of Secretary Rubio towards a diplomatic resolution” and voiced the Quad’s “opposition to any tolling proposition,” a reference to reported discussions between Iran and Oman on charging vessels to transit the strait.The Japanese foreign minister Toshimitsu Motegi was nearly as direct, describing “the Iranian situation” as imposing “enormous impact on the Indo-Pacific region, energy supply viewpoints included.” Rubio framed the crisis through the observation that “60% of global maritime trade passes through the Indo-Pacific” and that “current events remind us of what can happen when maritime security is impeded.”The negotiated joint statement referred to “the situation in the Middle East/West Asia,” a phrasing that bridged the US and Australian preference for “Middle East” and India’s for “West Asia”.While not naming Iran, the Quad ministers, in the joint statement, condemned “the attacks on commercial shipping vessels” and opposed “any future measures that are inconsistent with UNCLOS, including imposition of tolls”.It reiterated the importance of adhering to international law as reflected in UNCLOS “with respect to navigational rights and freedoms, and the safety and uninterrupted flow of global commerce through the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea”. There have been concerns that the Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen would choke off the Red Sea if the Iran war resumed and intensified.The joint statement also acknowledged that disruptions to maritime transport and supply chains carried “far-reaching consequences for global fuel, food and fertilizer security as well as the safety of seafarers.”In response, the ministers launched a Quad Initiative on Indo-Pacific Energy Security, with a standalone statement committing the four to “well-functioning, stable, transparent, secure and resilient energy markets” and to strengthening their respective “strategic petroleum systems”.‘Not militarisation of the Quad’ but a new surveillance layerThe ministers also launched a new Indo-Pacific Maritime Surveillance Collaboration, or IPMSC, that is to initially focus on the Indian Ocean. The initiative, proposed by India, “should not be seen as militarisation of the Quad”, Naidu said at the MEA briefing, describing it as pooling commercially available satellite data that many Indo-Pacific countries cannot afford on their own.It is distinct from the existing Indo-Pacific Maritime Domain Awareness programme, or IPMDA, which was launched at the 2022 Tokyo leaders’ summit to provide near real-time satellite tracking data to partner countries in the Pacific and in Southeast Asia. The IPMDA has since been expanded to the Indian Ocean, operationalised through India’s Information Fusion Centre in Gurugram.The new initiative, proposed by India, adds a coordination layer on top. “IPMDA will top up with IPMSC,” Naidu said.According to the Japanese foreign office spokesperson, the IPMSC would coordinate the four countries’ own surveillance assets to enable real-time information sharing.Wong explained that while maritime surveillance cooperation between the US, Japan and Australia was already underway, the new initiative extends it “to involve India more, particularly in the Indian Ocean”. She added that “maritime domain awareness is a precondition for freedom of navigation” and “a precondition for sovereignty”.The joint statement’s language on the South China Sea and East China Sea expanded further, continuing a pattern visible across successive Quad documents. The catalogue of coercive conduct now includes “flares” alongside water cannons, and for the first time describes the obstruction of navigation and overflight as “repeated”. The statement also clocked the tenth anniversary of the 2016 arbitral award on the South China Sea, calling it “a significant milestone and the basis for peacefully resolving disputes between the parties”, a characterisation that went beyond previous formulations.Asked about the Quad’s announcements, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning responded with language that has almost remained identical for years. “Cooperation between countries should be conducive to regional peace, stability and prosperity, and not target any third party. We oppose forming exclusive groupings or engaging in bloc confrontation.”Wong declined to respond directly to China’s remarks. “I want to talk about what we are for. We are for peace, stability and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific, and that’s what we’re acting to deliver,” she said.A $20 billion minerals framework amid ‘arbitrary export restrictions’The major announcement of the ministerial meeting was the Quad Critical Minerals Framework, which commits to mobilising up to $20 billion in government and private-sector support for mining, processing and recycling supply chains.The $20 billion figure, Naidu told reporters, reflected “what each Quad partner was actually doing in that particular domain”, indicating it encompasses existing national efforts and is not entirely new funding. The operationalisation of the framework will be taken up at the next working-level meeting, led by India’s Ministry of Mines.The framework proposes coordinated measures against “non-market policies and unfair trade practices”.Motegi was the only one among the ministers to mention it in his public remarks, stating that the four “shared deep concern over the export restrictions of critical minerals and others”. The language pointed plainly at China’s rare-earth and magnet export controls, although the Quad has never named Beijing in any statement.The joint statement sharpened language from July 2025, when the Quad critical minerals initiative was first launched, citing “arbitrary export restrictions, price manipulation, and disruptions” affecting critical minerals supply chains.The Quad’s first joint infrastructure project, in FijiThe ministers also announced what Wong called “the strongest ever commitment from the Quad to the Pacific” through the Quad Ports of the Future Partnership. The four countries will work with the government of Fiji to advance port infrastructure in the country. “It will be the first time that the Quad partners work together on a project, on a port infrastructure project,” Rubio said. Wong, who visited Fiji two weeks ago, described it as “a practical demonstration of our collective ability to deliver high quality, resilient infrastructure in partnership with the region and in response to Pacific priorities.” The partnership follows a conference hosted by India in October 2025. The joint statement also noted that Quad partners had supported undersea cable connectivity to all Pacific Island Forum countries by 2026.Ukraine and climate absent since Trump took officeTwo subjects present in earlier Quad documents were absent from all four texts released on Tuesday.Ukraine featured in every Quad leaders’ statement from the May 2022 Tokyo summit through the September 2024 Wilmington Declaration. Climate change and clean energy carried their own sections in those statements, with the 2023 Hiroshima text calling climate change the single greatest threat to Pacific Island peoples.Both disappeared from the January 2025 foreign ministers’ statement, the first Quad engagement after Trump took office, and have been absent from every statement since. The energy agenda is now framed entirely around security and supply rather than transition.Originally published at 2:36 pm on May 26, this article was updated and republished at 11:21 pm the same day.