Congress should strengthen oversight on Pacific Islands affairs

The Biden administration has outlined their $6.9 trillion budget request for Fiscal Year 2024. Part of this request has been framed around three pillars: 1) outcompete China globally; 2) confront threats to global security; 3) address pressing global challenges. Under the first pillar, the administration has included a request for $7.1 billion in mandatory funds over 20 years to support the renewal of the Compacts of Free Association (COFA) with the Freely Associated States (FAS) of Micronesia, Marshall Islands, and Palau. This request provides the United States Congress with the policy window needed to strengthen their oversight of the billions of dollars that could be spent on Pacific Islands engagement for the next few decades.

To ensure that American taxpayers are getting the highest return on these investments, Members of Congress should resist rubber-stamping this important request; instead, Congressional Committees should take advantage of the opportunity to query whether the United States Government is pursuing the right strategy for maintaining a strong and purposeful American role in the Pacific Islands region. Otherwise, the window of opportunity to course correct American engagement in the Pacific Islands will severely narrow once this request is approved.

One issue that needs to be considered is whether resistance to change is undermining American foreign policy in the Pacific Islands region.

Many years ago, it was decided that the Office of Insular Affairs (OIS) of the Department of Interior would administer and oversee federal assistance to the FAS. Overall, its performance has been rather disappointing. Consider the UNICEF assessment of the progress that countries have made toward the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that impact the health, welfare, and rights of children. All FAS ranked in the bottom 15 percent of the countries assessed. The Marshall Islands ranked 142 out of 146. Such results beg the question of whether the OIS should remain the institution primarily responsible for administering and overseeing foreign assistance to the FAS.

Similar path dependency concerns linger on the domestic programming front. When the COFA were established, the vast majority of Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders resided in the State of Hawaii and the United States Pacific Territories. Since then, there has been a major shift in those demographics. Now, the Government Accountability Office estimates that 50 percent of COFA migrants live on the United States mainland, including Arkansas, California, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, and Washington. It is therefore remarkable that so much federal funding continues to be spent on only a handful of institutions based in Hawaii.

Another issue that needs to be considered is why the United States Government has failed to realize the full potential of the Pacific Islander diaspora in American foreign policy. During the 2020 presidential campaign, I was a vocal advocate of our nation making a strategic investment in promoting increased dialogue between American officials and Pacific Islander diaspora. When the Biden administration announced the U.S. Pacific Islands Country Summit, I had hoped that they would use it as a platform to elevate Pacific diaspora engagement on the world stage. Unfortunately, that did not happen. Unlike the U.S. Strategy toward Sub-Saharan Africa, the word “diaspora” did not even appear in the Pacific Partnership Strategy. That was a major strategic oversight by senior officials.

The United States Government should be doing more to leverage the Pacific Islander diaspora as a platform to combat disinformation by the People’s Republic of China and to strengthen partnerships with Pacific Island countries, including the FAS. Otherwise, it will forsake a major force multiplier for American foreign policy across the region and beyond.

Yet another issue that needs to be considered is whether the United States Government possesses a large enough bench of American subject matter experts on Pacific Islands Affairs.

Kamala Harris said that the “history and future of the Pacific Islands and the United States are inextricably linked.” She should have added, “for better or for worse.”

When Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman commemorated the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Guadalcanal, she paid her respects to those “who fought and died to build a free, open, secure, prosperous, and above all peaceful Indo-Pacific.” In that speech, Sherman should have done more to highlight the war and post-war experiences for Solomon Islanders who contributed to the war effort, particularly the Solomon Islands Labour Corps. She also should have acknowledged the reality that many Solomon Islanders are not only struggling with the specter of revisionist authoritarian powers at their doorsteps — they are struggling for survival in their daily lives.

What Sherman referred to as “our” secure and prosperous Indo-Pacific region has yet to include many Solomon Islanders.

Too often, the United States Government is forced to turn to its allies and partners to fill critical gaps in its knowledge about the history, cultures, and languages of the Pacific Islands region. This is an imperfect solution for many reasons, not least of which is that their respective national interests do not perfectly align.

Michael Walsh is an affiliate of the Center for Australian, New Zealand, and Pacific Studies of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He served as the chair of the Asian and Pacific Security Affairs Subcommittee of the Biden Defense Working Group during the 2020 U.S. presidential election. The views expressed are his own.