Senior Trump administration officials emphasized today the “unprecedented focus” President Donald Trump is giving to the Federated States of Micronesia, Palau and the Marshall Islands by hosting the presidents of these island nations in the White House on Tuesday Guam time.
“It is, in fact, historic and it’s the first time a president of the United States is hosting the three presidents,” the Trump administration officials said, speaking via a phone conference. Their names and job titles were not releasable as a condition for the press briefing.
High-level federal government officials from the Department of Defense as well as the State and Interior Departments have also traveled over the past several months to various parts of the Pacific, including in Palau, the FSM, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.
The administration officials denied that the efforts to cozy up with Palau, the FSM and Marshall Islands are specifically geared toward and as a reaction to China’s territorial expansions or any other geopolitical developments in the Asia-Pacific region.
The administration officials did acknowledge that, after 70 years of the United States’ Compact of Free Association agreements with the three island nations, this will be the only time the Palau, FSM and Marshall Islands presidents would be hosted in a meeting at the White House with President Trump – and that no other American president has given similar attention.
The administration officials said they view the Compact relationship, which gives the United States access to the waters and airspace of the three island nations for defense purposes, “in perpetuity.”
The administration officials characterized the United States’ relationship with Palau, the FSM and the Marshall Islands as unique and has spanned “seven decades of family relationship.”
The island nations are, according to the administration officials, “special partners and friends.”
Guam has sat in the middle of these agreements.
Guam impact
The Compact agreements have led to the unrestricted access of immigrants from the three island nations into the United States, and based on a 2018 Census by the U.S. Census Bureau, Guam hosts the largest group of migrants from the Freely Associated States, at more than 18,000 or about 11 percent of Guam’s population. Hawaii’s FAS migrants number about 16,000, the survey estimated.
The senior administration officials said Guam already receives more than half of the $30 million a year in federal "Compact impact" funding through the Department of the Interior to help cover the costs of hosting the regional migrants. Guam has repeatedly said for decades the funding covers a fraction of the actual costs. As an example, tens of millions of dollars a year in Earned Income Tax Credit-related tax refunds to regional migrants have come out of the government of Guam pocket. In Hawaii, the federal government picks up that tab, something that Guam Del. Mike San Nicolas has recently pointed out to the Interior Department and U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin during congressional hearings.
In the press briefing, the administration officials said Palau President Tommy E. Remengesau Jr., Marshall Islands President Hilda C. Heine, and Federated States of Micronesia President David W. Panuelo will also visit the Tomb of the Unknown as part of their Washington, D.C., visit.
The island nations have one of the highest U.S. military enlistment rates and have lost nearly a dozen servicemembers fighting America's wars overseas.
The Trump administration’s efforts to get friendlier with Palau also have nothing to do with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s friendlier China relationship compared to his predecessors’ tough stance against the Chinese military’s buildup within territorial waters and shoals the Philippines claims as its own.
Palau is located between the Philippines and Guam and is the closest Freely Associate State to the Philippines. Palau is about a 1.5-hour flight away from the Philippines.
The U.S. Department of Defense does acknowledge it has become wary of China's territorial expansions and plans, stating in a 2018 annual report to Congress that, over the last three years, the Chinese military "has rapidly expanded its overwater bomber operating areas, gaining experience in critical maritime regions and likely training for strikes against U.S. and allied targets."
"The (People's Liberation Army) may continue to extend its operations beyond the first island chain, demonstrating the capability to strike U.S. and allied forces and military bases in the western Pacific Ocean, including Guam," the Defense Department report states. "Such flights could potentially be used as a strategic signal to regional states, although the PLA has thus far has not been clear what messages such flights communicate beyond a demonstration of improved capabilities."
In the Western Pacific, China began to field the longer-range H-6K bomber aircraft in 2013, incorporating cruise missile pylons to turn the bomber into a stand-off strike platform, the report states. "The H-6K’s capabilities provided the PLAAF an offensive strike capability against Guam," the report adds.