Depending on who you ask, Donald Trump’s impending return to the White House holds a promise or poses a threat. Trump is one of the world’s most polarizing figures. He can bring excitement; he can trigger anxiety.
Even Pacific Island leaders can’t be indifferent to the result of the U.S. presidential elections. With a combined sense of optimism and uncertainty, they sent their courtesy congratulations to Trump following the election.
Why does he matter? The White House may be more than 4,000 miles from the Pacific Ocean, but the tentacles of policy decisions from Washington reach the island region. Climate change, for example, is at the core of the Pacific Island nations’ security concerns and Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement in 2019 naturally causes apprehensions for the region.
Many are concerned that Trump—who called climate change “a big hoax”—will disengage from funding climate action programs in the region.
“I think that’s one of the areas where we, as Pacific nations, need to unite and communicate with the United States, especially President Trump, to share our concerns,” Palau President Surangel Whipps Jr said in an interview with ABC News Australia.
“Of course, Trump himself is a climate change denier. So, there’s good and bad with the Trump administration,” said Derek Grossman, a senior defence analyst at RAND Corp., a global policy thinks tank and research institute.
On the defence side, the Pacific Island region’s strategic value to the United States has amplified since Trump’s first term in office. Geopolitical tensions have escalated as China becomes more aggressive.
Grossman does not expect any changes to the U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy and engagements with the island region under Trump’s second term in office. “It’s important to point out that the Trump administration was the first administration since the end of World War II to prioritize the Pacific Island region,” he said. “So I don’t see Trump walking away from something that he himself invented— although you never know because he is Trump and he’s unpredictable, right?”
But it’s highly unlikely, Grossman said, noting that Trump was the first U.S. president to sit down with all three leaders of the freely associated states at the White House. “There was a lot of engagement during that time,” he added.
President Joe Biden has continued with the Pacific engagement, hosting two rounds of the U.S.-Pacific Island Summit with Pacific Islands Forum leaders at the White House in 2022 and 2023. The Compacts of Free Association with the Federated States of Micronesia, Palau and the Marshall Islands were successfully renegotiated and amended this year, pledging US$7.1 billion to the freely associated states for a 20-year cycle.
“You could argue that this engagement was misguided in terms of the region because the region doesn’t want to get involved in geopolitical competition,” Grossman told the Pacific Island Times.
However, the Pacific Island nations will remain pawns in the game. “I think what we’re going to see in part two is an acceleration of great power competition throughout the Indo-Pacific and the Pacific islands, unfortunately, are going to continue to get swept up in that,” Grossman said.
While the Pacific Island region’s role in the U.S. military’s power projection may remain unchanged, Trump’s new fiscal policy is subject to guesswork. In 2018, Trump attempted to cut by 18 percent the budget for Guam, the Northern Marianas, American Samoa and the freely associated states.
In their separate congratulatory messages, Marshall Islands President Hilda Heine and FSM President Wesley Simina underscored COFA’s “critical role in advancing peace, prosperity and regional security,” and reaffirmed their respective nations’ partnership with the U.S. under the Trump administration.
Michael Walsh, a visiting researcher at the Lasky Centre for Transatlantic Studies at LMU Munich, predicts “significant changes” in Washington’s strategic approaches in the Pacific Island’s region under Trump’s second term.
“Personally, I have never felt that the Pacific Partnership Strategy made the right choices on where to play and how to win in the Pacific islands region,” Walsch said. “Nor did I feel that it really tackled the core capabilities and management systems required to put those strategic choices into action. I think that assessment is shared by several people who will be advising the incoming administration on Pacific affairs.”
Walsh also said the Pacific Partnership Strategy has failed to “strike a proper balance” between the Americans’ prosperity and the nation’s security.
“One of the chief concerns is that the Biden administration failed to make strategic choices that reflect the importance of self-reliance and good governance by regional actors,” he said. “Some regional experts claim that the Biden administration sidestepped the importance of much stronger management and oversight systems for U.S. aid, trade and investment throughout the COFA renegotiations.”
Trump is primed to seize on such concerns, Walsh said. “I expect the incoming administration to take a hard look at how it can better advance American and Pacific islanders’ prosperity in Pacific affairs. That will likely include taking a hard look at revising existing agreements, footprints and programs across the U.S. Pacific territories, freely associated states and other Pacific Island countries,” he added.
The U.S.-based Heritage Foundation, closely associated with some of Trump’s supporters, recommended that Washington pump more money into the region, noting that the Pacific islands occupy a pivotal location that is important to U.S. efforts to “deny China’s regional hegemonic ambitions.”
“While focused on making the case for and to Americans, the strategy also incorporates Pacific islands, allied and partner interests and perspectives to emphasize shared interests, potential areas of cooperation, and long-lasting engagement opportunities,” states the report titled “The Pacific Pivot: An American Strategy for the Pacific islands” authored by Andrew Harding.
Besides the simple competition for influence, Harding pointed to the crucial strategic locations of the islands, as was so well demonstrated during World War II. “They straddle the shipping lanes that carry the majority of global trade, span vast areas of the Pacific’s fishing grounds, gas fields and possible seafloor mineral riches,” he wrote.