Rubio: Manila to host Quad leaders’ summit
The next Quad Leaders’ Summit will be held in Manila this month, bringing together the leaders of India, the United States, Japan and Australia at a crucial moment for the Indo-Pacific region, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Saturday.
“[H]opefully we’ll be announcing very soon, if we haven’t already, that we will have a Quad leaders’ meeting in Manila in the… next month,” Rubio said in a press conference on the sidelines of the Group of 20 (G20) foreign ministers’ meeting in Atlanta.
He did not provide details but the summit will most likely take place on the sidelines of the 49th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Summit on Nov. 16 to 18. The Philippines is Asean’s current chair and will host the leaders’ summit and other multilateral meetings during the three-day event.
Manila maintains good bilateral relations with all four Quad members, with President Marcos having made official and state visits with each of the four countries in the past two years.
The meeting of the Quad leaders—US President Donald Trump, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese—will be their first in more than two years. It will also be a departure from previous leader-level gatherings held exclusively in member countries.
Pax Silica agreement
Malacañang earlier confirmed Trump’s attendance at the biannual gathering of the regional bloc but declined to divulge details on the US leader’s itinerary in Manila for lack of authority to speak for him.
One of the most anticipated developments during Trump’s visit is whether Manila and Washington will formally sign the framework agreement for the controversial Pax Silica initiative.
After the summit, Mr. Marcos, Trump and other leaders will then fly to Shenzhen, China, for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Economic Leaders’ Meeting on Nov. 18 and Nov. 19.
The Quad, or Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, is composed of the United States, Australia, India and Japan. The alliance is widely viewed as a mechanism to counter Beijing’s growing influence in the Indo-Pacific region, although Rubio maintained that it was not “anti-China.”
“The Quad is a cooperative agreement between four countries that share a common interest, and common opposition to behaviors. And that’s what we’ll continue to point to,” Rubio said.
The last Quad leaders’ summit was held in September 2024 in Wilmington, Delaware, the hometown of then US President Joe Biden.
