Commentary

Biden vs. Trump: The Quad

Key Takeaways

  • Although both Joe Biden and Donald Trump have promoted the Quad as an important vehicle for advancing U.S. interests in the Indo-Pacific, the objectives and policy outcomes of their engagement were different. These disparities reflect the leaders’ visions for the U.S. role in the region, as well as their divergent attitudes about multilateral and “mini-lateral” cooperation.
  • Biden leveraged the Quad to create a latticework of overlapping and mutually reinforcing mini-lateral arrangements with allies and partners on a broad spectrum of security and development issues. A second Biden term would likely see more frequent leader-level and cabinet-level meetings, deeper working group cooperation on development challenges, and new initiatives targeting public goods.
  • Trump’s engagement with the Quad was narrower and more transactional, focused on underpinning the U.S.-India bilateral relationship and advancing the “free and open Indo-Pacific” concept. If re-elected, Trump would likely build on some of Biden’s mechanisms but scale back cooperation on issues that he does not deem vital to U.S. interests, such as climate change and global health.

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