The Quad Is on the Brink of Extinction

During his first term, U.S. President Donald Trump quietly resurrected the grouping, originally created at Japan’s initiative in 2007, after a nearly decade-long hiatus. Yet since his return to the White House in 2025, Trump has refused to participate, leaving the Quad leaderless and degrading its geostrategic value. This spiral is likely to continue unless or until Trump decides to attend the Quad summit that Australia, as the rotating chair for 2026, may host later this year. If Trump declines again, then the Quad will be relegated to geopolitical insignificance, and it may even spell the end of the grouping entirely.

It wouldn’t be the first time the Quad died. Back in 2008, the grouping collapsed due to some of its members getting cold feet on too aggressively challenging China. Elections had brought new leaders to power with less of a hawkish bend to their China policy. This time around, the primary reason for the Quad’s demise would be more worrisome: Washington is no longer a reliable strategic partner in the international system.

Trump’s decision not to attend India’s 2025 summit appears to have had policy and personal reasons. On the policy side, he demanded that New Delhi agree to a new U.S.-India free trade agreement as a deliverable before his visit. But for whatever reason, the deal was still being negotiated. Additionally, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was battling Trump over steep new U.S. tariffs at the time; these levies were later relieved. Trump further harbored deep personal resentments toward Modi after he refused to acknowledge Trump’s role in resolving a four-day war between India and Pakistan in May. Instead, Trump reset ties with Islamabad after Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif showed no such reluctance and even called for Trump to be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.

Another Quad member frustrated with Trump is close U.S. security ally Japan. Tokyo seems to have been caught off guard by Trump’s initial imposition of a 24 percent tariff last year. Trump then threatened to increase the tariff rate another percentage point even after trade consultations in May, demonstrating the futility of negotiating with the United States even as a close friend. Only after further negotiations did the two sides agree to 15 percent. The whiplash continued in February, when the U.S. Supreme Court decided that that Trump’s tariffs were unconstitutional and he then announced a separate, across-the-board 10 percent tariff.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration originally demanded that Japan spend 3 percent of its GDP on defense. This target was subsequently increased to 3.5 percent to align with a similar NATO figure. At the time, Tokyo spent only about 1.4 percent on defense, meaning that Washington was requesting it to more than double its defense spending almost overnight. The demand was so insulting to Tokyo that then-Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba felt the need to uncharacteristically and undiplomatically push back hard against Washington. The defense budget, he said last March after 3 percent was floated, “should not be decided based on what other nations tell [Japan] to do.”

Under current Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, Japan’s security cooperation and alignment with the United States remain intact, but the vibes are concerning and suggest that less, not more, will likely be done between the two countries in the future. Trump recently criticized Tokyo, for example, for not helping to reopen the Strait of Hormuz as part of his war against Iran. Japan is also poised to unlock its arms exporting potential, which has remained dormant since World War II. While Japan’s ramping up of weapons production is applauded by Washington, it is actually largely in response to growing Japanese concerns about the U.S. preoccupation with wars in places such as the Middle East. Takaichi clearly believes that Tokyo must do more—and alone, if necessary.

Finally, Australia—as both a Quad member and U.S. treaty ally—also harbors growing concerns about America’s direction. Canberra was kept in the dark about Washington’s decision to counter-blockade Iran in the Strait of Hormuz, for instance. Similar to its interactions with Japan, the Trump administration demanded that Australia spend at least 3.5 percent of its GDP on defense, and though it initially balked, Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles announced last week that his country would spend roughly 3 percent by 2033, closer to Trump’s goal but still falling short. When asked about Australia last Thursday, Trump said, “I’m not happy,” because of its refusal to participate in his Iran war. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese hasn’t been happy with Trump of late either, especially with the latter’s threat to eliminate Iran’s civilization, which Albanese considered inappropriate and in ignorance of international law.

Meanwhile, Australian Trade Minister Don Farrell has expressed Canberra’s disappointment at Trump’s recent imposition of a 10 percent tariff, even though the United States has a trade surplus with Australia. After the Supreme Court ruling, Farrell called the tariff “unjustified.” Regardless, the damage to bilateral trust has already been done.

Compounding these fractures is Trump’s anticipated visit to China next month, which is likely to send more shockwaves through the Quad. Instead of visiting New Delhi for a Quad summit on his way to or from Beijing, he will skip India in favor of China. For Australia, India, and Japan, the core value of the grouping has always rested on a shared understanding that Washington would serve as the strategic anchor balancing Beijing. A high-profile Trump visit to Beijing—especially if it produces even the perception of a U.S.-China accommodation on trade, Taiwan, or regional security—would raise fears of a U.S.-China condominium that sidelines allied interests.

New Delhi would worry about being cut out of great-power bargaining, Tokyo would fear abandonment amid rising tensions in the East China Sea, and Canberra would see further evidence that Washington prioritizes transactional diplomacy over alliance management and long-term security. Even if no concrete concessions emerge, the optics alone risk reinforcing a narrative already taking hold across the Indo-Pacific: that U.S. commitment is conditional, episodic, and ultimately subordinate to Trump’s personal whims and arrangements, in this case with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

To be sure, the Quad may survive and muddle along—hobbled but not mortally wounded by these strains. But that seems increasingly unlikely given the steady erosion of the U.S. strategic partnerships underpinning the grouping since Trump’s return to power. It is hard to imagine the Quad enduring another two and a half years of this flavor of U.S. foreign policy without losing both credibility and purpose.

If the Quad does falter, it will not simply disappear—it will be quietly replaced. India, Japan, and Australia are already exploring alternative paths to coordinate on security, supply chains, and defense industrial cooperation, both trilaterally and through other minilateral frameworks that do not depend as heavily on Washington’s consistency. These arrangements will be narrower, more transactional, and far less ambitious than the Quad at its peak.

In that sense, the real loss is not just the Quad itself but the broader vision it once represented: a durable, values-based coalition capable of shaping the Indo-Pacific balance of power. If the grouping collapses, it will mark a decisive shift away from that model toward a more fragmented regional order—one in which U.S. allies hedge more openly, coordination becomes episodic, and collective action gives way to strategic self-help. China will undoubtedly benefit—not because it outmaneuvered the Quad but because the United States chose to disengage.