The US Is Quietly Torpedoing Its Relationship With Pacific Island Partners

THE DIPLOMAT | Daniel Mandell

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently reported that the Trump administration's failure to properly staff legally required positions for the Freely Associated States (FAS) — the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau — is undermining U.S.

interests in the Pacific. This lack of action prevents the FAS from meeting their own reporting obligations and sabotages diligent U.S. military and diplomatic efforts to maintain a free, open, and secure Pacific, a region U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Commander Admiral Samual J. Paparo described as "the Department of Defense’s priority theater." The Pacific, comprising roughly 20 independent countries and territories, controls over 7 million square miles of maritime territory, twice the size of the United States, and holds critical military and economic importance, with hundreds of billions of dollars in goods, including significant American imports and exports, transiting annually. An egregious example cited is the administration's failure to appoint members to the Joint Economic Management and Financial Accountability Committee and Joint Economic Management Committee until August 2025, over a year past the deadline.

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