Dr Satyendra Prasad
Leaders across the Pacific Island states are preparing for the return to Oval Office by President-Elect Donald Trump. They are anxious. They are hopeful. They are anticipating an era of new possibilities.
Unquestionably, there will be turbulence ahead in the Pacific Island States and the US relationship as the policy directions of President Trump begin to fall in place from January 20th. It will focus obviously on Russia-Ukraine War, Middle East, on China among other regions.
Will the Blue Pacific be left behind in the list of US priorities? There is anxiety that the step up in US engagement building under the Biden Presidency may be disrupted.
A recalibration of US and Pacific relationship may be necessary – in ways that ensures that US-Pacific relations are more overtly responsive to US concerns, and equally respectful of the sovereignty and interests of Pacific Island states. This will not be an easy task. Is the Blue Pacific ready?
Investing in relationship building
A Trump presidency will be deeply personal. This is not necessarily a bad thing for the Pacific. The Pacific thrives on personal relationships and on personal connections.
President Trump may extend an early invitation to the leaders of the Blue Pacific to the White House. Should this happen, it would be an opportunity to extend an invitation to President Trump in return to the Blue Pacific – possibly in a Pacific Islands Forum setting.
Becoming the first sitting US President in history to visit the Blue Pacific will be historic. For the Pacific, this will be an opportunity to discuss its extreme vulnerability and express its bilateral and multilateral priorities. For the Pacific, this will be an opportunity to have the undivided attention of the US President – even if that were only for few hours. For the US, it will be an opportunity for intimate and blunt conversations about security considerations that matter to the US.
Geostrategic messaging
China enjoys an important advantage in the Pacific – that is the consistency in its messaging to the Pacific. Its messages and its engagements are framed over the long term – and its approach survives several US presidencies.
The Biden Administration learned a difficult lesson in its efforts to step up US engagement with the region. It found that the Pacific disliked stop-restart approaches to engagement and reengagement. It found that the Pacific valued consistency. It valued long term relationships.
Strengthening Alliances
The island states have often relied on Australia and New Zealand to project their concerns and issues to the US because they have larger representations in Washington D.C. and because they are great friends.
It is also true, that like the rest of the World, Australia and New Zealand’s diplomats will have their plates full especially on issues related to tariffs.
The Pacific will do well to invest directly in building broader coalitions across both Houses of the US – its Congress and its Senate. Congressmen and women and Senators representing Hawaii, California, Washington State, American Samoa, Guam and other regions take a lot of interest in issues of concern to the Blue Pacific. They come from both the political parties.
There is a significant convergence in their support to the island states. The Pacific cannot take this for granted – it needs to build on this. More sustained engagements with these coalitions will be helpful in settling down the new Administration around the Pacific’s priorities.
Visibility and Presence
A stepped-up engagement between the US and from the Pacific requires sustained presence. The US has made a great start in stepping up its diplomatic presence across the Pacific. This needs to be sustained. Its appointment of a Special Envoy to PIF has been welcomed.
A further step up is now needed and the ball is squarely in the Pacific’s court. The region must stop procrastinating about its permanent presence in Washington DC. Early in the life of the new Presidency, Pacific Islands Forum will be well advised to appoint its Special Envoy to the USA supported by a full time Pacific Islands Trade Commissioner. This is a minimum that the region can do – and perhaps within the first 30 days.
The US may in turn establish a Permanent Office for its Special Envoy to Pacific Islands Forum to be based in Suva.
Managing competition
There are no hotspots for conflict between China and the USA in the Blue Pacific. There are no maritime boundaries, no shoals, no reefs that are contested and of interest to either of the super powers.
Nevertheless, the sky, the sea-lanes and the seabed are all contested – hotly contested. Those who control these will have great advantages in the networked global economy of the future.
Some 3000 of the 7000 Elon Musk’s SpaceX satellites, hover on the blue skies of the Blue Pacific on any day. Without that SpaceX will be a regional – not a global platform.
The importance of the Blue Pacific to the US is well understood by President Elect Trump and by his advisors. The Blue Pacific features in an outsized way in the future security calculations of the USA. It features in an outsized way in the security calculations in Beijing equally.
The Blue Pacific’s leaders need to be crystal clear about their sovereignty, their rights and their interests across all these domains as they step up their engagement with the incoming administration – in its first100 days especially.
Pacific’s leaders will need to impress on the new Administration on why the region seeks to engage collectively rather than individually on these questions. They will need to make their collective case to an Administration that prefers bilateral arrangements – not cumbersome multilateral approaches.
It is also feasible that the US will once again retreat from the Pacific – especially though disruptions to the operations of its State Department and its development arm – the USAID especially. Today, this will be more traumatic for the US than for the Blue Pacific.
A US retreat from the Blue Pacific will be at a great cost to its own security and eventually to its economic regeneration. Ultimately economic regeneration is the great promise of the America First strategy being advanced by President Elect Trump.
In the World’s most climate stressed and vulnerable region – the Blue Pacific, the most powerful strategic weapon that the US has in its armoury is its weapon for promoting development.
Engaging US Businesses
The Pacific will do well to position itself on the front seat for growing US businesses in the Pacific. It will need to do so creatively.
The real potential for the Pacific will be in the newer sectors of the global economy. Fiji has led the way in slowly building up its engagement with Google for example. This has taken time. This requires patience.
Pacific – from the Marshall Islands to PNG to Samoa, can be a natural home for a range of US start ups in the climate space. Pacific can be the home for newer sectors in the Blue Economy – especially in areas such as marine genetics and biotechnology. It can be the home for US start up to test and build new technologies for fisheries management.
A Trump White House will be hugely supportive of Pacific’s efforts to grow and expand US investments in the Pacific. This is a great opportunity. This is a great hook for a broader relationship
The axis on which the global competition between the two great superpowers of our age will play out in the Pacific will be climate change. Nothing else.
With the Silicon Valley leaders signed up in support of the Trump Presidency – these are opportunities well worth progressing. This will not be easy. There is homework that needs to be done on the Pacific side. Fiji can help the region by sharing its experiences on how to step up US engagement. It has done so more successfully than other parts of the Blue Pacific in recent years.
USA and Pacific perspectives will clash on climate change
There is no question that there will be a divergence of views on climate change. The Pacific’s concern about relentless sea level rise and extreme weather events will clash with a growing momentum in the USA for drilling into the sunset.
USA welcomes and indeed lives off disruptions. The Pacific likes predictability and privileges stability over all else. The task for Pacific and US diplo-crats will be to frame these perspectives in ways that are mutually comprehensible.
For US, the Blue Pacific matters foremostly for its own security – security of its trade routes; security of its supplies and security of parts of US geography that are located in the Blue Pacific – from Guam to American Samoa.
For the Pacific, the continued frustration with getting the World closer to 1.5 Celcius temperature increase means that the impacts of climate change will be felt through heightened insecurity – food insecurity, health insecurity, economic insecurity and ultimately societal insecurity.
Climate change will create unstable economies across the Pacific. This will eventually impact on the US’s own security. Migration of tuna because of warming oceans is likely to mean that some commercial fishing fleets will begin to turn into narcotics running for example. The Blue Pacific is simply too vast for walls of any kind – digital or physical.
The import of narcotics into the US will take more circular shipping routes via the Blue Pacific as US tightens its own border controls. As Pacific’s political institutions weaken and possibly even begin to crumble under the weight of successive climate catastrophes, it is indeed possible that their politics will become deeply criminalized.
Ultimately therefore, the US has as much self-interest in supporting the island states of the Blue Pacific to build climate resilient societies and economies as Pacific Island states themselves do. This is the central conversation that Pacific and US leaders need to be having. They will need to start these conversations very early in the Presidency.
US businesses can be an important part of climate solutioning in the Pacific. US Government’s development levers can be an important driver for creating stable economies across this region where the US and the Blue Pacific share sovereignties and where they have shared security and development interests. This uniqueness of the Blue Pacific is a story that needs to told a hundred times over to the Presidency; to its influencers and to a growingly inward looking US public.
Engaging with clarity
I believe that the Pacific’s leaders are focussed on engaging with the new Trump Administration with far great clarity and focus than under Trump 1.0. The ball is in the court for now with Pacific’s leaders. They need to make a good start to that relationship. The risks of not getting on to a great start will be substantial. Its adverse fall out will be felt over the long term.
Many advisors, influencers, businesses and individuals very close to the Trump 2.0 Administration are rooting for a hugely impactful and re-energised USA-Pacific relationship.
I extend my very best wishes to Pacific’s leaders for 2025 and pray that Pacific’s regional institutions and its leaders are guided excellently as they shape the Pacific’s approach for re-engagement with the His Excellency President Trump.
Contributing Author: Dr Satyendra Prasad – is a non-resident Senior Fellow at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington D.C. and the Climate Lead for Abt Global. He is Fiji’s former Ambassador to the UN, US and Canada. Views expressed are personal.
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