Quad leaders to meet in Manila on Tuesday as sources confirm first summit in two years
Modi, Trump, Takaichi and Albanese are expected to gather on 17 November, on the sidelines of the ASEAN summits; the first Quad leaders’ meeting since 2024, and the first ever held in a country outside the group.
Key points
- Sources in New Delhi confirmed to The Hindu on 14 November that the four Quad leaders will meet in Manila on the evening of Tuesday 17 November, after President Donald Trump lands in the Philippine capital. The Hindu, 14 Nov 2026
- Two people familiar with the planning told Reuters the leaders would gather shortly after Mr Trump arrives in Manila, with his aircraft due to land at about 17:30 local time on Tuesday, the last day of the ASEAN summit. Reuters, 14 Nov 2026
- It will be the first Quad leaders’ summit since September 2024 in Wilmington, Delaware, and the first ever held in a country that is not a member of the grouping. The Hindu / Reuters, 14 Nov 2026
- India holds the Quad chair but has been unable to host a summit even once, mainly because of Mr Trump’s unavailability; New Delhi is unwilling to hand over the chairship without hosting it in Delhi. The Hindu, 14 Nov 2026
- The agenda is expected to cover critical-mineral supply chains, energy supplies and the safety of commercial shipping and seafarers; at least 30 Indian seafarers have been killed in attacks in the Strait of Hormuz, the Sea of Oman and the Black Sea. The Hindu, 14 Nov 2026
Three readings of the same result
Same facts, different frames. Each reading names its outlets and what it emphasizes.
The story is read as a test of whether the Quad still holds together under a second Trump presidency.
Reuters frames the Manila meeting as the revival of a grouping widely seen as a counterweight to China’s growing influence, while noting that its members insist it is not directed against any one country.
Key detail United States officials confirmed the president’s travel and the multilateral meeting, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio indicated last month that the leaders could meet…
The story is read as India’s summit, held anywhere but India.
The Hindu, reporting from New Delhi, stresses the chair that New Delhi will not hand over without hosting, and the seafarers’ safety agenda that gives the meeting a human ledger of 30 Indian dead.
Key detail The Indian Express adds the strain behind the delay: tariffs, visa curbs and deportations that have kept Mr Trump away from Delhi for two years.
The story is read as a Southeast Asian capital hosting a great-power table.
Khaleej Times, carrying the Reuters report, leads with the timing and the two-year gap, while the Philippine government’s own briefing, the second source for the Reuters account, puts Manila in the unusual position of staging a summit of four outside powers.
Key detail The Philippines chairs ASEAN in 2026, and 2026 is the ASEAN-India Year of Maritime Cooperation, so the meeting lands on a year when the region’s…
Sources by lens: 1 West, 4 East, 1 Global South. See every source
The story
What did New Delhi and Washington confirm on Saturday?
Sources in New Delhi confirmed to The Hindu on Saturday that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet United States President Donald Trump, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Manila on Tuesday evening, 17 November, in the first Quad summit since 2024. The meeting is expected to take place after Mr Trump lands in the Philippine capital, the sources said, and will be held on the sidelines of the ASEAN summits. Officials who confirmed the summit would take place late on Tuesday evening said they were still awaiting a formal intimation of the timing.
The confirmation matches a separate account from Reuters, which reported that two people familiar with the planning expect the leaders to gather shortly after Mr Trump arrives in Manila, with his aircraft due to land at about 17:30 local time on the last day of the ASEAN summit. A second person, from the Philippine government and briefed on the preparations, gave the same timing. United States officials briefing the media on Mr Trump’s travels also confirmed that the president will travel to Manila and take part in a multilateral meeting with Quad country leaders. The shift from Friday to Saturday is the story: on Friday the meeting was being arranged, with no government willing to confirm it; by Saturday evening, sources in two capitals were confirming it will happen.
What is settled about the Manila meeting?
The four leaders, the day and the setting are settled. Mr Modi will be in Manila from 16 to 17 November at the invitation of Philippine President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr., taking part in the 23rd ASEAN-India Summit and the 21st East Asia Summit, hosted by the Philippines as ASEAN chair for 2026. Mr Trump, Ms Takaichi and Mr Albanese are all expected at the East Asia Summit, and the Quad gathering is expected to take place on its sidelines. It will be the first Quad leaders’ summit since September 2024, when then President Joe Biden hosted the four in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, and the first since Mr Trump returned to office last year.
The agenda, as described by the sources, is economic security as much as strategy: supply chains for critical minerals and energy, securing commercial shipping lanes for energy supplies, and the safety of ships and seafarers. The last item carries a human weight for India in particular, at least 30 Indian seafarers aboard ships in the Strait of Hormuz, the Sea of Oman and the Black Sea have been killed in attacks during the conflicts in Iran and Ukraine. Reports had earlier indicated that a Quad Business Forum mechanism would also be announced during the summit. The grouping’s foreign ministers have kept the momentum alive in the meantime, meeting three times this year, in Delhi in May, in Manila in July and in Atlanta in October, on the sidelines of the G20 foreign ministers’ meeting.
What is still unannounced about Tuesday evening?
Almost everything official. No Quad government has formally announced the meeting, no joint statement has been published, and officials have not clarified who will be the official host of a summit held in a country that belongs to none of the four members. India’s foreign ministry said on Thursday that it had no information on the meeting, and its spokesperson said on Friday only that the ministry would keep journalists updated with developments in Manila. The exact hour remains unconfirmed, and the format, a full summit with a joint statement, or a shorter pull-aside with a photograph and little else, is unknown.
Nor is it clear what the meeting will produce. A Quad Business Forum has been reported as a possible announcement, but nothing has been confirmed. Whether Mr Trump and Mr Modi will hold a bilateral meeting on the sidelines is unannounced, and the larger question, whether India will finally host a summit in Delhi next year, as New Delhi hopes, is unresolved. The sources in New Delhi said the capital is unwilling to hand over the chairship without hosting the summit, which may yet happen in Delhi next year, but no date has been set and no host has been named.
Why does a meeting in Manila matter more than a meeting anywhere else?
Because the venue is the message. This will be the first Quad summit held in a non-Quad country, and it exposes the awkward fact at the heart of the grouping: India holds the chair, yet has been unable to host the summit even once, mainly because of Mr Trump’s unavailability. India was supposed to host in 2025 and again in 2026, and neither meeting materialised. The strained ties between India and the United States over tariffs, visa curbs, deportations and Washington’s close ties with Pakistan’s military have stood in the way of a Trump visit to India for two years. Manila is the workaround; a summit that happens because four leaders will be in the same city anyway.
The agenda matters as much as the venue. Critical minerals and the safety of shipping lanes are the points where the four countries’ interests genuinely overlap, and they are also the points where China’s shadow falls longest: Beijing has always opposed the Quad, calling it a small clique that promotes bloc confrontation. Holding the meeting in Manila, in the week the Philippines chairs ASEAN, also puts Southeast Asia at the centre of a great-power conversation that is usually held above its head; and it happens two days before Mr Trump travels to Shenzhen for the first three-way meeting with China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, a summit that could overshadow Manila entirely.
What does the Manila workaround reveal about the Quad?
It reveals a grouping that survives by borrowing other people’s stages. The Quad was revived in 2017 and raised to leader level in 2021, yet it has no headquarters, no secretariat and no fixed calendar, and when its chair could not host, it simply waited for ASEAN to bring everyone to the same city. The delay was not diplomatic: it was personal and political. Mr Trump’s unavailability kept India from hosting, the midterm results, in which the ruling Republican Party lost its majorities in Congress; delayed the confirmation of his travels, and the meeting was discussed for weeks, including during Secretary Rubio’s visits to India in May and October, before it could be fixed.
The agenda reveals the second adaptation. A decade ago the Quad spoke the language of navies and deterrence; in Manila it will speak the language of minerals, energy and seafarers, the supply chains that all four members need and none can secure alone. That is the ground where agreement is cheapest, and where China’s leverage is most direct: the country that dominates critical-mineral processing is the country the Quad was built to balance. The test of Manila is therefore narrow. If the four leaders leave with a mechanism, a business forum, a minerals pact, a shipping arrangement; the workaround will look like a design. If they leave with a photograph, it will look like what it is: four leaders who happened to be in the same city.
What happens the morning after Manila?
Three consequences follow. First, the chair question moves to the front of the queue. New Delhi has made clear it will not hand over the chairship without hosting, so the pressure now falls on Delhi to stage the next summit; and on Washington to say whether Mr Trump will finally travel to India. If Delhi hosts in 2027, the Manila workaround becomes a footnote; if it does not, the chair becomes a rolling embarrassment for the grouping’s largest member.
Second, the Shenzhen meeting two days later will reframe whatever Manila decides. Mr Trump travels from the Philippines to China for the first three-way summit with Mr Xi and Mr Putin, to discuss global issues including nuclear arms control. Anything the Quad agrees on minerals or shipping will be read in Beijing within 48 hours, and anything Beijing offers in Shenzhen will be read in Delhi, Tokyo and Canberra the same way. Third, the precedent is set: the Quad now knows it can meet on the margins of someone else’s summit. That lowers the cost of the next meeting; and lowers the bar for what counts as one.
What should readers watch between now and Tuesday?
First, the formal intimation the officials are still awaiting: the exact hour of the meeting, and whether any government confirms it on the record before Tuesday evening. Mr Trump’s aircraft is due in Manila at about 17:30, and the gathering is expected shortly after, so the window is narrow and the choreography will be visible in real time. Second, the ASEAN-India Summit and the East Asia Summit on 17 November, where the four leaders will already be in the same rooms; and where China’s premier will also be present on the ASEAN side of the week.
Third, whether a Quad Business Forum or any minerals or shipping deliverable is announced, and whether the four leaders issue a joint statement. Fourth, Thursday’s move to Shenzhen, where the three-way meeting with Mr Xi and Mr Putin will show whether Manila was a prelude or a sideshow. And fifth, the longer clock: whether Delhi is named as the next host, and whether Mr Trump’s calendar finally allows a visit to India after two years of absence.
What we agree on, and what remains open
Established
- The four Quad leaders, Modi, Trump, Takaichi and Albanese, will meet in Manila on the evening of Tuesday 17 November, on the sidelines of the ASEAN summits, in the first leaders’ meeting of the grouping since September 2024 and the first ever held outside a Quad country.
Contested
- On how much the meeting proves; Washington debates the Quad’s relevance after the Indo-Pacific Command was renamed back to Pacific Command, Beijing dismisses the group as a small clique, and New Delhi treats it as the centrepiece of its Indo-Pacific policy.
Still open
- The exact hour, who will formally host the meeting, whether a joint statement or a Quad Business Forum will be announced, or whether India will host the next summit in Delhi.
What to watch
Questions, answered
Because it is the first Quad leaders’ summit ever held in a country that is not a member of the grouping. India holds the Quad chair but has been unable to host a summit even once, mainly because of President Trump’s unavailability, so the four leaders are meeting on the sidelines of the ASEAN summits in Manila instead. The last leaders’ summit was in Wilmington, Delaware, in September 2024.
Critical-mineral supply chains, energy supplies and the safety of commercial shipping and seafarers are expected to top the agenda, according to the sources who confirmed the meeting. The seafarer item matters most to India: at least 30 Indian seafarers have been killed in attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz, the Sea of Oman and the Black Sea. A Quad Business Forum may also be announced.
India was due to host the summit in 2025 and again in 2026, but neither meeting happened. The Hindu reports the main reason was President Trump’s unavailability, and the Indian Express adds the strain in India-United States ties over tariffs, visa curbs, deportations and Washington’s close ties with Pakistan’s military. The foreign ministers kept the grouping alive, meeting three times in 2026.
President Trump travels to Shenzhen, China, for a three-way summit on 19 November with President Xi Jinping and President Vladimir Putin; the first meeting of the three leaders together, expected to discuss global issues including nuclear arms control. The Quad’s next test is longer term: whether India finally hosts a summit in Delhi next year, as New Delhi hopes.