Jaishankar to travel to U.S. for G20 Foreign Ministers’ meet, Quad this week

A week after United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s visit to India, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar will travel to the U.S. city of Atlanta to attend the meeting of G20 Foreign Ministers hosted by Mr. Rubio. The three-day visit from October 29 to 31, which is Mr. Jaishankar’s fourth trip to the U.S. this year, will include meetings with his counterparts from other G20 countries amidst a series of global developments and the ongoing conflict in West Asia.

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has not announced the visit thus far, but diplomatic sources confirmed that his engagements will include the Quad Foreign Ministers’ meeting with Mr. Jaishankar, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Japanese Foreign Minister Motegi Toshimitsu hosted by Mr. Rubio in Atlanta.

The Quad Ministers earlier met in Delhi in May this year but could not schedule a summit of the leaders in India, whose turn it has been to host the summit since 2024. Instead, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, U.S. President Donald Trump, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will hold a Quad leaders’ meeting in Manila, on the sidelines of the ASEAN-East Asian Summits, that they are all attending in mid-November. In particular, officials are working on ways to take the three key outcomes of the May Quad Foreign Ministers’ meeting forward, including an Indo-Pacific Maritime Surveillance Initiative, the Quad Critical Minerals Framework and the Quad Initiative on Indo-Pacific Energy Security. The decision to hold the Quad leaders’ summit in the Philippines, is a first in a non-Quad country and indicates the difficulties the grouping has had in scheduling the summit in the past few years.

On South Africa’s exclusion

In Atlanta, the controversy over the U.S.’s decision to exclude South Africa from the G20 this year due to bilateral tensions, is also expected to be raised by many of the members. India has thus far not commented on the issue, although others like Russia have criticised the U.S. for the decision, and last week, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz called for the U.S. to revoke its decision.

“The African Union is a member of the G20. And so is South Africa. That’s why I urge that South Africa be represented at the G20 summit,” Mr. Merz said, referring to the summit of the world’s major industrial and emerging economies.

All eyes will also be on any possible trilateral meeting between Mr. Rubio and his counterparts from Russia Sergey Lavrov and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi at the G20 Ministers’ meeting. On Monday (October 26), Mr. Trump suggested he was open to holding a trilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping when he travels to Shenzhen, China for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum’s summit between December 18 and 19, after the Manila visit.

Mr. Trump will host the G20 summit from December 14 to 15 at the 800-acre Trump National Doral resort owned by the U.S. President. Mr. Modi will travel to the U.S. as part of a three-stop tour, first to Canada from December 11 to 13, then to the U.S., and after that will fly to Brussels, Belgium to sign the India-EU Free Trade Agreement on December 16.