July 31, 2026
Trump’s Pacific Islands Blind Spot
This article was originally published in Foreign Policy.
Last week, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau traveled to the Solomon Islands to meet with the country’s new prime minister, Matthew Wale. The trip would have been rather unremarkable except for the fact that Landau is the most senior Trump administration official to have visited the Pacific islands—a vast region of 16 nations and territories, not including Australia or New Zealand—that President Donald Trump and his team have sorely neglected since returning to office last year. Once, in April 2025, Trump mentioned Fiji as one of the many countries worldwide that would face his trade tariffs—and he seems to have little to no actual interest in the region. Although Landau’s announcement of the U.S. Peace Corps’ return to the Solomon Islands was laudable, the Trump administration’s absence of vision and dearth of deliverables for the region is palpable.
If the Trump administration truly believes that strategic competition with China will be decided in the Western Pacific, then the Pacific islands should be receiving more—not less—attention from senior U.S. policymakers.
It is even more remarkable considering that the first Trump administration prioritized the Pacific islands as a new frontier in the intensifying battle for influence between China and the United States. Micronesia and Palau, for instance, received visits for the first time from sitting secretaries of state and defense, respectively, and Trump himself met with all three leaders of the U.S.-partnered Freely Associated States (FAS)—comprised of Micronesia, Palau, and the Marshall Islands—for a historic summit at the White House.
Read the full article in Foreign Policy.
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