The US, Australia, India and Japan have agreed to expand cooperation on maritime security in the Indo-Pacific region and increase cooperation on the supply of important and rare minerals.
Foreign ministers of the US, Australia, India and Japan met in Washington on Tuesday. US President Donald Trump’s administration wants to expand the American influence in the Indo-Pacific to compete with China amidst tension with its partners on trade and defense issues.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a joint meeting with three of his colleagues that the quad should be a “medium of action” which is just beyond statements. He emphasized that commerce and trade would be important to ensure the relevance of the group in future.
For this purpose, the Foreign Ministers of the four countries announced the “quad important mineral initiative” in a statement “aims to” strengthen economic security by collaborating on making important mineral supply chains safe and diverse and adopting flexible stance collectively “.
The statement was not given the details of the initiative. He said, “We are extremely concerned about the sudden limit of major supply chains and their credibility of the future.” The statement has not been named China, but Chinese domination on the supply chain of important minerals has long been a matter of concern for the US and other countries. “