Australia-India-Japan-US Quad to build a port, unveil pact on critical minerals

The foreign ministers of Australia, India, Japan and the U.S. agreed ​to jointly build a port in Fiji and signed pacts covering critical minerals and energy security, as they sought to ‌inject fresh energy into the grouping.

The brief meeting between the countries' top diplomats - Australia's Penny Wong, India's S Jaishankar, Japan's Toshimitsu Motegi and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio - was the third such gathering of the group known as Quad since September 2024.

The Quad meeting came as the U.S. and Iran have been circling around ​a possible deal to end their three-month conflict and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

The group unveiled its first joint infrastructure project, a ​port in Fiji.

"We are going to be partnering on issues of port infrastructure, in particular in response to ⁠insufficient port capacity in the Pacific Islands, we are announcing plans to work with Fiji," Rubio said, adding that the initiative would be "a ​practical demonstration of our collective ability to deliver high-quality, resilient infrastructure."

The four-nation group had lost some momentum last year after failing to hold a ​leaders' summit, amid tensions between U.S. President Donald Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi over Washington's tariffs and other matters.