In a recent lecture on “India’s rise and role in the world” at Chatham House, London, external affairs minister S. Jaishankar said that in the Indian view, the US was moving towards multipolarity “and that is something that suits India.”

He went on to add:

“From President Trump’s perspective, the one big shared enterprise that we have is the Quad, which is an understanding where everybody pays their fair share…There are no free riders so that’s a model that works.”

The EAM perhaps has an optimistic view of Trump’s global approach. Some would say that the multipolarity Trump is thinking of is one which involves Russia, China and the US, with little room for India there. Others could argue that Trump is actually seeking to re-state America’s global hegemonic strategy through different means and he has a supporting role for India in mind, one US presidents have had since the mid-2000s.

In January 2021, on the eve of demitting office, the Trump administration declassified its Indo-Pacific Strategy. What was striking in it was the statement in the framework that the key challenge for the US in the region was “How to maintain U.S. strategic primacy in the Indo-Pacific region and promote a liberal economic order while preventing China from establishing new, illiberal spheres of influence….”

Among the “lines of effort” laid out at the time was the need to “accelerate India’s rise and capacity to serve as a net provider of security and Major Defense Partner,” as well as supporting India’s Act East policy and “its aspiration to be a leading global power.” Other areas requiring attention were the need to promote India-US energy cooperation, working with India and Japan to help finance regional connectivity, promote maritime domain awareness, support a maritime information “fusion center” and so on.

The first Trump administration renamed the Asia Pacific region as the Indo-Pacific. But call it by any other name, the vision suffers from a fundamental flaw. It seems to want to draw India into the military calculus of the Pacific Ocean, while ignoring New Delhi’s truly major concern – the stability of the North Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf region. As we know famously, US policy in the region is divided by the Pope’s line that goes through Diego Garcia. To the west of it, in the area of the US Central Command (CentCom) or the Africa Command (Africom), there is little or no conversation between the US and India. This is hardly a recipe for a strategic partnership.

Also read: Jaishankar Has Blundered By Prematurely Showing India’s Hand on Currency Multipolarity

And then, there is the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, aka the Quad. There is a tendency in India to overstate the nature and goals of the outfit. Seven years after it was revived at the initiative of the first Trump Administration, it still remains a somewhat loosely organised and purposed organisation. It is neither a military alliance, nor an economic bloc. It does not have a secretariat which hinders its ability to put across a comprehensive and coherent strategy and it’s not easy to piece together just what the outfit is up to.

Sure, at the declaratory level, the Quad has promoted a “rules based” order in the Indo-Pacific that emphasises the freedom of navigation and overflight in the region. It has established an Indo-Pacific Maritime Domain Awareness system to enhance stability and prosperity in the region. Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief have been a core element of Quad cooperation and it has initiated infrastructure partnerships to provide alternatives to China’s Belt & Road Initiative (BRI). The group has emphasised cooperation in areas like climate change, clean energy, technology and semiconductor supply chains to build prosperity for the region. An important aspect of its work has been collaboration on health security in areas like Covid and HPV.

It is difficult to pin down just what among its many activities are actually sending a deterrence signal to China, the ostensible aim of the grouping. For that, there would be need for some hard power, but as of now that seems to be missing from the Quad calculus. In fact, the US has instead given shape to the Australia, UK, US (AUKUS) alliance whose components are three of the “Five Eyes” that form the basic global military system of the US.

Parallel to this, the US has also set up the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF), an economic initiative launched in May 2022. This includes 14 countries, including the Quad core. This is seen as a weak substitute for the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade agreement from which the US walked out off under the first Trump administration. Though it seeks to counterbalance China’s economic influence, it does not offer tariff reductions or market access. It focuses on domestic regulations and competitive measures.

Just what will be the second Trump administration’s approach to the Quad is not difficult to say. A great deal will depend on its approach to China itself which is not clear as yet. There are many who suggest that Trump will seek a deal with Beijing. If so, this will leave countries like India out on a limb.

In any case, Trump has not shown any desire to encourage multilateral initiatives. He has trashed the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement, walked out of the WHO and the Paris Climate Change agreement, virtually killed off NATO and the WTO. Indeed, he could well take the US out of the UN itself. He has shown a preference for bilateral agreements, as indicated by his approach to the Ukraine war on one end of the spectrum, and the India-US bilateral trade agreement (BTA) on the other. It could be argued that his actions are likely to contribute to a decentralised global order. But Trump does not view mutipolarity on terms of equality and non-hegemony. His policies, domestic and foreign, are aimed at making the US even more powerful militarily and economically, and hence even more hegemonic.

Notwithstanding what Jaishankar has said, it is not at all clear whether the US, and especially the Trump administration, views the Quad as a “shared enterprise”. So far Trump, who has said something about everything, has said little about the Quad. It is true, though, that the Quad foreign ministers met in Washington DC two days after the Trump inaugural. A press note spoke of the shared commitment on the gamut of issues outlined above. But this was probably more about the Quad past, than the Quad future. A lot of things will become clear in the coming months, especially at the time India hosts the Quad summit scheduled for later this year.

Manoj Joshi is a Distinguished Fellow, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi.

This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire & Galileo Ideas – and has been updated and republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.

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