On the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly last month in New York, U.S. President Joe Biden held a brief sit-down with the leaders of the Freely Associated States—comprising the Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands, and Palau. These three nations, through their recently renewed Compacts of Free Association with Washington, provide the U.S. military with near-exclusive access to their land, air, and seas within the Second Island Chain—critical advantageous positions in the North Pacific to win future wars.
It was just the latest example of Washington's deft handling of the Pacific Islands region. To be fair, former President Donald Trump's administration set the stage for America's elevated presence and influence in the region during the previous administration, but the current administration has done even more, and generally done it well.
Starting in 2022, Washington hosted an historic U.S.-Pacific Islands Summit at the White House. The summit was a remarkable accomplishment because the Pacific Island participants agreed to the “Declaration on U.S.-Pacific Partnership” whereas they declined to ink the Chinese version known as “China-Pacific Island Countries Common Development Vision.”
The Trump administration set the stage for America's elevated presence and influence in the region, but the current administration has done even more, and generally done it well.
Washington's Declaration called for enhanced regional cooperation to deal with transnational challenges such as climate change, nuclear nonproliferation, and pandemic relief, as well as supporting the region's economic development. By contrast, Beijing's Vision represented a sweeping multilateral deal encompassing political, economic, and security collaboration that was heavily criticized within the region for what appeared to be China's desire to further control Pacific Islands.
It was equally impressive that Washington's Pacific Partnership Strategy, released at the conclusion of the summit, very consciously and specifically tracked with the region's 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent—even to the extent of explicitly connecting the strategies on a point-by-point basis. Both strategies emphasize using regional collaboration to address transnational and socio-economic challenges. The American strategy also clearly prioritized climate change (certainly not a given), stating “we have an interest in partnering with the Pacific Islands to drive global action to combat climate change.” Climate change presents an existential threat to Pacific Island nations, and thus, such language was warmly welcomed.
Underscoring the continued high value Washington places on the Pacific Islands, Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have virtually addressed the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) summit. Comprised of 18 members including Australia and New Zealand, the PIF is the premier multilateral venue for negotiations and regionalism in Oceania.
Beyond summitry, Washington has successfully engaged in bilateral negotiations as well. In 2023, for example, Washington concluded a defense cooperation agreement with Papua New Guinea, allowing Papuan officers to board U.S. Coast Guard vessels patrolling the surrounding waters. Such cooperation will contribute to the modernization and professionalization of Papuan forces, and enhance maritime security. That same year, the United States established official diplomatic relations with the Cook Islands and Niue.
And to more effectively compete with China's much larger diplomatic corps stationed in the region, the United States beefed up its own footprint by opening three new embassies since 2023, including in the Solomon Islands, Tonga, and Vanuatu. Having a U.S. Embassy in the Solomon Islands is particularly important, considering that Honiara in 2022 signed a deal with Beijing that authorizes China to regularly make warship visits and to provide training and assistance for Solomon Islands' law enforcement. America now stands a better chance of both monitoring and countering the agreement now that its representatives are present on the ground.
Washington has also been forward-leaning on the need to offer economic assistance to Pacific Island nations. At the last PIF summit held in Tonga this August, Washington's emissary to the dialogue, Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, noted that the United States continues to pledge $8 billion to the region. Such funding is critical as the Pacific Island states are overwhelmingly small and impoverished and thus vulnerable to Chinese enticements.
Despite Washington's sensible policies in the Pacific, there are reasonable criticisms of its approach as well. For instance, while the first-ever U.S.-Pacific Islands summit on the surface appeared highly successful for the policy initiatives it brought to bear, the second summit in 2023 lacked the high-powered policy deliverables of the first. And then the White House skipped the 2024 iteration entirely, calling into question the summit's sustainability into a new administration.
Despite Washington's sensible policies in the Pacific, there are reasonable criticisms of its approach as well.
Furthermore, the two summits undermined—whether inadvertently or consciously—the PIF because they attempted to make Washington a new power center for Pacific cooperation. This is precisely what Pacific Island nations have railed against, i.e. becoming a party to the intensifying great power competition between China and the United States. The same can be said of Washington's other major strategic initiative—Partners in the Blue Pacific (Australia, Japan, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States)—that seeks to harness America's network of allies and partners to boost economic and diplomatic interactions with Pacific Island nations at China's expense.
It is also noteworthy that neither Biden nor Harris has ever attended a PIF summit in person. As with ASEAN in Southeast Asia, showing up is highly meaningful to Pacific Island leaders. In 2021, Fiji invited Biden to attend, but he declined. Indeed, sending Campbell to the most recent PIF in Tonga may have been viewed in the region as an insult since he is not a world leader.
Another problem pertains to Washington's diplomatic ground game. The United States' opening of three new embassies in the region is an impressive feat, but it simply is not moving fast enough. Washington pledged a new embassy in Kiribati—a nation that switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China in 2019, along with the Solomon Islands—making it a priority, and yet nothing has materialized thus far. In the macro picture, China has representation in nine countries to America's eight, but the staff sizes in these hosts nations are much larger for Beijing, sometimes by a ratio of ten to one. And there are many countries where the United States still has no representation at all. Additionally, the United States does not have a diplomatic mission to the PIF to represent it as a dialogue partner, as Washington does with ASEAN.
And finally, on American economic assistance to the Pacific Islands, the breakdown in allocation belies Washington's stated goals. Most notably, approximately $7 billion of the $8 billion is going to the Freely Associated States via the Compacts to shore up the U.S. military's access to them in the event of a conflict, rather than spending the majority of funds on climate change or other issues of particular interest to Pacific Island nations. As a rule, the Pacific welcomes climate change over great power competition and conflict. However, the administration's success in getting Congress to pass the largest climate change-related bill in history, the Inflation Reduction Act, considerably helps to turn this perception around.
Overall, Washington has done very important things in the Pacific Islands region, albeit with some notable shortcomings over the last several years. The next administration is poised to continue this engagement, no matter who wins the election. But Trump, a climate change denier, will very likely face heightened scrutiny in the region, especially if great power competition intensifies. Harris, as Biden's vice president, would be considered the safer president given her prioritization of climate change. Either way, the United States has considerable momentum versus China in the region, and it should seek to capitalize further in the future.
