Page 21 - IB December 2024

Analysis Analysis

posts and sending defence attachés to Fiji, the Federated and halted further payments to the Green Climate Fund
States of Micronesia and Papua New Guinea. In May (GCF), refusing to fully meet pledges made by the outgoing
2019, Trump hosted the three presidents of the US Freely Obama administration. At COP28, US President Joe Biden
Associated States at the White House. Members of his also committed US$3 billion to the GCF, but this money is
Cabinet, including then-Vice President Mike Pence and unlikely to get through the current Congress.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, visited Pacific Island Beyond this, Trump’s disdain for multilateralism and the
states to reinforce security ties and pledge infrastructure United Nations is in sharp contrast to Pacific Island nations,
funding. which have leveraged their global diplomacy through UN
This engagement continued under the Democratic Party agencies, for example: Vanuatu’s campaign for an advisory
after Trump was defeated by Joe Biden in the 2020 opinion on climate at the International Court of Justice;
presidential race (a result he contests to this day). Despite campaigns to introduce a carbon levy on shipping at the
many policy differences, there is bipartisan commitment International Maritime Organisation; and the Republic of
in Washington to resist Chinese influence in the islands’ Marshall Islands’ work on the UN Human Rights Council
region. around the legacies of nuclear testing.
President Biden placed greater emphasis on alliances and Paradoxically, if Trump cuts funding for renewable energy,
climate action than Trump, but extended his regional boosts nuclear power and withdraws from the Paris
engagement. Over the last four years, the United States Agreement, it will open the way for Beijing to ramp up
has re-opened embassies in the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, its support for Pacific partners on climate action and
and Tonga; expanded USAID and Peace Corps operations; renewable technology (sectors that have been relatively
issued a Pacific Partnership Strategy; and hosted Pacific low on the Belt and Road agenda until now).
leaders at two White House summits in 2022 and 2023.
However, despite repeated statements of commitment, the 3) The heightened competition with China
Trump and Biden administrations failed to follow through Addressing the South Pacific Defence Ministers Meeting
on many of their pledges. Both Republicans and Democrats in Auckland in October, Pacific Islands Forum Secretary
have found it difficult to gain Congressional approval for General Baron Waqa said: “The geopolitics occurring in our
funding to the region. The same problem will be evident region is not welcomed by any of us in the Pacific Islands
in 2025, given the narrow Republican majority in the US Forum.”
House of Representatives. Trump will have a greater focus Bad luck for the Forum – during the second Trump
on Europe, the Middle East and China (albeit with a level administration, geopolitical clashes will be the order of the
of incoherence in White House management), rather day!
than Small Island States and Least Developed Countries In recent years, many Forum Island Countries have tried to
– remember 2018, when he described small African and juggle their economic ties to China amid US and Australian
Caribbean nations as “shithole countries”? pressure to end any security or policing agreements with
Another problem is that Trump has tasked Elon Musk Beijing. But a second Trump administration will ramp up
and Vivek Ramaswamy to establish a Department of the geopolitical contest with China, and Forum members
Government Efficiency (DOGE), which is supposed to cut will be pressed to “choose sides” and ditch their policy of
US$2 trillion from the US budget (an impossible target). “friends to all, enemies to none” (as seen with Australia’s
These billionaire entrepreneurs are likely to slash funding recent security treaties with Tuvalu and Nauru).
for environment, overseas aid and development programs A number of politicians and officials nominated to key posts
from the State Department, EPA and NOAA. If hard-pressed are “China hawks”, who want to ramp up the strategic
bureaucrats must slash budgets, projects in the Pacific may competition with the People’s Republic. Trump’s proposed
face the chop ahead of more strategic regions. National Security Adviser is Republican Congressman
Mike Waltz, a former Green Beret who says China is an
2) Climate politics “existential threat” to the United States. Nominated as
The central issue that will undercut Trump’s overtures to US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio is a neo-conservative
Pacific Island nations is climate change. who will focus on “threats in the Indo-Pacific from an
Adopted in Nauru in 2018, the Forum’s Boe Declaration increasingly aggressive China”. In 2022, Rubio stressed that
expanded the concept of security, stressing that “the single China —not climate change—was “the gravest threat facing
greatest threat to the livelihoods, security and wellbeing of America today”.
the peoples of the Pacific” was climate change. In contrast, Between 2017 and 2018, the first Trump administration
Trump has argued that the climate emergency is “one of launched a series of initiatives to halt Chinese
the great scams of all time”. investment in Pacific Islands’ infrastructure, undersea
During his first term, Trump said that global climate cables and telecommunications. Trump sought to stop
agreements place “unfair economic burdens” on American deals with Chinese corporations by allocating funds to
businesses. Assuming office in 2017, he announced the US’s US, Australian and Japanese competitors (scuttling,
withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change for example, a proposed Huawei internet connection

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