Commentary by Kathryn Paik

Published January 15, 2025

U.S. national security depends on maintaining influence and access across the Pacific-as it ensures that actors like China do not gain a security foothold in a region that hosts locations such as Guadalcanal and Tarawa. In the United States, there is a broad bipartisan agreement on the importance of the Pacific, but an increasingly competitive and complex global environment demands continued attention and reevaluation of the U.S. Pacific strategy. As the next U.S. administration shapes its agenda, it is essential to understand how the landscape in the Pacific Island region has continued to evolve. Therefore, this two-part commentary will first look back at the major developments in the Pacific in 2024 and examine how, despite all the ramped-up attention by global partners ranging from India to the European Union to China, strategic influence across the Pacific Islands region remains very much in play. Part two will then assess what this means for the future of U.S.-Pacific relations-and therefore for U.S. national security interests in this critical region-and provide recommendations on how the United States should approach the evolving U.S.-Pacific relationship in 2025.

The Pacific as an Areana of Geostrategic Competition

By almost any measure, the world in 2024 became increasingly complex and destabilized, with new and ongoing conflicts in Europe; rising competition over resources such as critical minerals, fisheries, and fresh water; and the emergence of new competitive battlegrounds such as space and undersea cables. Major elections dominated the consciousness of billions of voters-including in the three largest democracies India, the United States, and Indonesia. Overlaid atop all of this were the mounting effects of climate change and an increasingly tense great power competition.

Each of these factors played out in some way in the Pacific Islands region, with its network of critical shipping lanes, vast oceans full of vital maritime resources, numerous UN votes, and strategic location connecting the United States to its allies and partners halfway around the world.

As such, geopolitics loomed large across the Pacific in 2024 as the United States and like-minded allies and partners continued to race for influence to counter what they viewed as an increasingly ambitious and aggressive China. While China has steadily increased its engagement with Pacific Island countries over the past decade, the signing of the China-Solomon Islands security agreement in 2022 rang alarm bells across Washington and Canberra-not to mention Wellington, Tokyo, and beyond-and set off a series of efforts to counter Chinese influence efforts in the region.

Partners Ramp Up on Security . . .

Even by the standards of recent years, however, 2024 saw an unprecedented number of major strategic muscle movements to gain access and influence in the Pacific. Australia proved itself a heavy hitter in directly advocating for its national security interests in the Pacific this past year, rolling out a series of agreements accompanied by a flurry of diplomacy across the region. The Australia-Tuvalu Falepili Union treaty, signed in late 2023 but brought into force in August 2024, commits Australia to not just assisting Tuvalu in the case of natural disaster or military attack, but also to provide a path for citizens of Tuvalu to immigrate to Australia. The Nauru-Australia Treaty, signed in December 2024, focuses Australian assistance on much-needed banking and budget support in Nauru. And in a particularly Pacific-flavored arrangement, in December Papua New Guinea (PNG) and Australia entered into an agreement through which a PNG rugby team will join the National Rugby League as part of an expanding Australian investment into PNG sports. Additionally, Australia's policing and security agreement with PNG, signed in 2023, came fully into force by the end of 2024.

Despite the unique architecture of each of these bilateral arrangements, one theme remained consistent: the ability of Australia to restrict each of the participating country's ability to partner with any third nation on security. These agreements are a creative manifestation of what was outlined in Australia's 2024 National Defense Strategy, which emphasized the importance of a "Pacific, family-first approach to security," and committed to ensuring that Australia remained the partner of choice in the Pacific, "including on security cooperation." By crafting individual agreements that focused on the bespoke concerns and desires of each respective partner country, Australia demonstrated a willingness to be unapologetically direct in pursuit of its national interest.

Beyond treaties and bilateral agreements, geopolitics also shaped broader partner engagement with the Pacific including visits, increased diplomatic presence, and development assistance-especially in critical sectors such as information and communication technology, infrastructure, and security. This reflects a growing understanding by development partners that influence requires partnership and a willingness to provide assistance that meets the needs of the region. Whether an airfield in the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu's first-ever subsea cable, an airport in Samoa, or a presidential palace in Vanuatu, the rash of development projects continued to pop up throughout the region.

Australia continued its role as the largest development partner for Pacific Island countries, albeit with increasing weight towards security-related assistance, such as with the announcement in early December of large-scale financial support for the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force. Other countries strove for news-worthy announcements as well, such as Japan, which hosted the 10th Pacific Island Leaders Meeting in July and rolled out commitments such as funding the rebuild of the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI)'s airport terminal.

The United States also continued its upward trajectory of Pacific engagement, which began under the first Trump administration and accelerated under President Biden. This was demonstrated most notably in the passing and funding of the critical Compacts of Free Association agreements with RMI, the Federated States of Micronesia, and the Republic of Palau. As the bedrock of U.S. presence in the region, these unique arrangements allow for U.S. defense presence and access across the Northern Pacific from the Philippines to Hawaii. In November, U.S. secretary of defense Lloyd Austin visited Fiji and announced the signing of an Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement with the country, paving the way for closer U.S.-Fiji defense ties. In the same vein, the United States continued to double down on its growing defense relationship with PNG by increasing defense visits, joint exercises, and implementation of the recently signed Defense Cooperation Agreement.

Although security arrangements remained high on the priority list for U.S. policymakers, progress also continued with a variety of other programming, including the Pacific Connect initiative, which launched the first-ever subsea cable to Tuvalu earlier this year. Additionally, the United States continued its slow but steady march forward on expanding its much-needed diplomatic presence in the region by opening an embassy in Port Villa, Vanuatu, in July 2024.

Of course, China also maneuvered throughout the Pacific in 2024 to try and move the influence needle. In fact, Australia's bilateral agreement with Nauru was likely motivated in part by Nauru's sudden diplomatic switch from Taiwan to the PRC in January 2024, reducing Taiwan's Pacific allies to only three (down from six in 2017). The rapid and hidden nature of this switch-which was followed by China opening an embassy in Nauru just five days later-revealed China's strong inroads inside Nauru, leaving Western nations to wonder just how many other spheres of influence they might be unaware of across the Pacific. Additionally, China continued its high tempo of leader-level engagement with the region, hosting leaders from five Pacific countries (Samoa, Fiji, Nauru, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu) in Beijing on separate occasions, in pointed contrast to the United States, which has only engaged at the leader level in group settings in recent years.

. . . And Yet Fall Short on Climate

Yet while development efforts appeared robust, overall development funding to the Pacific dropped in 2024, even as projects became more security-focused. More critically, partners continued to hit well below Pacific expectations on climate, which remains the number one priority for Pacific nations.

In a prescient move, PNG foreign minister Justin Tkatchenko announced that PNG would withdraw from the 29th Conference of the Parties (COP29) just three days before the event, stating that "the pledges made by major polluters amount to nothing more than empty talk" and "we need action, not more talk."

There were some bright spots and signs of progress on climate in 2024, but overall, the year proved disappointing, especially at COP29, where outcomes fell far short of what most developing nations had hoped for. This frustration was most astute in the Pacific, as international groupings failed to secure agreements to mitigate climate change and ensure the resiliency of less-developed nations even as natural disasters continued to batter the region and devastate local economies and livelihoods.

The USD 300 billion committed by wealthy nations at COP29 to provide financial assistance for adaptation and resilience was seen as grossly insufficient to meet the needs of developing and poorer countries in combatting the devastating effects of climate change. Developing countries had been pushing for USD 1.3 trillion, in line with what a recent report cited would be needed by rich countries to avoid a "steeper and potentially more costly path to climate stability." From that viewpoint, USD 300 billion was a huge disappointment, not least because it will come from a "wide variety of sources," and therefore could be conveyed via loans that incur further debt distress among developing nations.

Even efforts to reinforce prior-year statements on mitigation fell short. During the International Conference on Small Island Developing States in May 2024, the outcome statement left out reference to transitioning from fossil fuels, largely due to lobbying by gas-rich nation delegations such as Saudi Arabia. Later in the year at COP29, there was continued pushback against reiterating language agreed to at COP28 to transition away from oil, gas, and coal. The fact that this year's COP was hosted by Azerbaijan, a country that depends upon oil and gas for 90 percent of its exports, likely added to the sense that major nations are not truly committed to phasing out fossil fuels.

And of course, casting a shadow over COP and other climate efforts in 2024 was the question of how the United States will or will not continue to contribute to these efforts under a second Trump administration.

Thus 2024 ended much as it began for the region-with Pacific countries in the strategic crosshairs of major world powers, and climate change very much an existential and unresolved issue. Despite major muscle movements throughout the year-both externally and internally-strategic influence in the Pacific remains very much in play, not least because each of these democratic islands has a vocal say in the matter. As the United States policymakers plot a course for Pacific engagement into 2025, it will be critical to both follow through on existing efforts, and also to ensure that new initiatives are grounded in an understanding of how U.S. national security is very much dependent on a prosperous, vibrant, and secure Pacific. Part two of this commentary will examine this challenge further and provide recommendations on how the next U.S. administration can and should look to enhance its efforts in the Pacific in 2025.

Kathryn Paik is deputy director and senior fellow with the Australia Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.

Programs & Projects