The two leaders are understood to have discussed the entire gamut of India-US comprehensive strategic partnership, including the deepening of the bilateral relationship, shared challenges such as China, and the wars in Ukraine and West Asia. At the time of going to press, the bilateral joint statement wasn’t out, but it was expected to include significant announcements on defence industrial co-production, semiconductors, and manufacturing in India.

After the meeting, Biden posted on X: “The United States’ partnership with India is stronger, closer, and more dynamic than any time in history. Prime Minister Modi, each time we sit down, I’m struck by our ability to find new areas of cooperation. Today was no different.”

Biden was accompanied by secretary of state Antony J Blinken, US national security advisor Jake Sullivan and the American ambassador to India Eric Garcetti. From the Indian side, external affairs minister S Jaishankar, foreign secretary Vikram Misri and Indian ambassador to the US Vinay Mohan Kwatra were present at the meeting.

Briefing reporters before the meeting, Sullivan had said that the two leaders were expected to discuss Modi’s visit to Ukraine and directly share their assessments of China’s activities in the region.

Modi and Biden were to then join the Australian PM Anthony Albanese and Japan’s PM Fumio Kishida for the sixth Quad leaders summit at a separate venue in Wilmington. At the time of going to press, the group was about to commence its deliberations and expected to announce ambitious new initiatives in the form of joint coast guard patrolling, cancer treatment, an understanding on logistics for their militaries to engage in quicker humanitarian and disaster relief (HADR) operations, and expansion of the Indo-Pacific Maritime Domain Awareness (IPMDA). This will lend Quad a sharper security edge than in the past.

Modi arrived in Philadelphia on Saturday early morning and then drove to Wilmington, around a 40-minute drive. The Indian community welcomed the PM, upon arrival.

Modi then came to Biden’s home, informally called the Lake House, around 1 pm eastern time. The meeting was closed to press and the American side did not offer the media any access to the meeting that was billed as “personal” rather than official.

In his briefing, Sullivan had said that Biden believed that “all politics is personal” and developing personal relationships was crucial to diplomacy. “Opening his home to these leaders is showing that these leaders matter to him, Quad matters to him,” Sullivan said. Giving a flavour of a personal meeting, in the context of Biden’s engagement with Albanese on Friday, Sullivan said that the spirit of the meeting was of two friends chatting, exchanging notes about the state of the world and their political careers, and even taking a walk, with Biden instructing officials to shed their jackets to lend it a more informal event. Observers speculated that this may be a template that Biden may emulate for the meeting with Modi.

On the more substantive agenda, Sullivan said that Quad represented a key pillar in the evolving architecture in the Indo Pacific where the US had moved from a hub and spoke model — where Washington DC had independent bilateral relationships with its allies and partners — to a “latticework” like arrangement where besides the American relationship with its allies and partners, these countries too had deeper ties with each other and there was an overlapping network.

Sullivan also said that the group will unveil the first joint coast guard mission to showcase the capabilities of the four countries. Quad will expand the IPMDA, adding new technologies and capabilities that will help countries in the region monitor their waters. Quad fellowships were to be expanded to include citizens from Southeast Asian countries. It will deploy more pilot Open Radio Access Network (ORAN) infra in Pacific Island states. And it will deepen HADR cooperation.

While acknowledging that China will be a subject of discussion as a part of the developments in the Indo Pacific, Sullivan insisted that Quad wasn’t aimed at another country but aimed at offering a positive agenda of a free and open Indo Pacific. He said there was no reason for China to consider any of Quad activities as provocative, in the backdrop of Beijing’s consistent criticism of Quad as an “Asian NATO” type mechanism meant to contain China.

The US side has been keen to project Quad as Biden’s key legacy that will outlast the administration. Sullivan also pointed out that there was a bicameral and bipartisan Quad caucus that was set up in the House and Senate on Friday.

Quad leaders were slated to participate in a cancer moonshot event late on Saturday and attend a reception. Modi was scheduled to fly to New York and address a major diaspora event in Long Island on Sunday.

Before leaving for the US, Modi said the Quad grouping is committed to working for peace and progress in the Indo-Pacific region. “I look forward to joining my colleagues President Biden, Prime Minister Albanese and Prime Minister Kishida for the Quad Summit. The forum has emerged as a key group of like-minded countries to work for peace, progress and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region,” he said in an official statement.