US might not cut pledged Pacific aid, NZ foreign minister says
After talks in Washington, Winston Peters said he was ‘more confident’ that aid meant to counter China might stand.
WASHINGTON - The Trump administration might let hundreds of millions of dollars in aid pledged to Pacific island nations during former President Joe Biden’s time in office stand, New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters said after talks in Washington on Monday.
The Biden administration pledged about $1 billion in aid to the Pacific to help counter China’s influence in the strategic region.
However, Trump last month froze all disbursements of aid by the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, for 90 days pending a “review” of all aid spending under his “America First” policy.
New Zealand’s foreign minister told reporters on Monday that he had exited meetings with Trump’s USAID acting head, Peter Marocco, and his national security adviser, Mike Waltz, “more confident” about the prospects of the aid being left alone than he was before.
Peters said he had a “very frank and open discussion” with American officials about how important the aid was for the Pacific, and insisted that they “get our point of view in terms of how essential it is.”
“In our business, it’s wise to find out the results before you open your mouth, but we are looking ahead with more confidence than when we arrived,” Peters said, pushing back against claims that the Trump administration would be “pulling back” from the Pacific region.
“We don’t know that yet. Let’s find out in April, when that full review is done on USAID,” he said. “But we came away more confident than some of the alarmists might have been before we arrived.”
Pacific theater
The Biden administration sought to rapidly expand U.S. engagement with the small island nations of the Pacific after the Solomon Islands signed a controversial security pact with China three years ago.
The deal by the Solomon Islands sparked a frenzied diplomatic battle between Washington and Beijing for influence in the strategic region.
Biden subsequently hosted Pacific island leaders at back-to-back summits in Washington in September 2022 and 2023, the first two of their kind. He pledged hundreds of millions of dollars at both meets, appearing to tilt the region back toward Washington.
The first summit included announcements of some $800 billion in aid for the Pacific, while the second added about $200 billion.
But the region has since been rocked by the Trump administration’s decision to freeze all aid pending its ongoing review. The concerns have not been helped by a claim from Elon Musk, who Trump tasked with cutting government waste, that USAID will be shuttered.
“You’ve got to basically get rid of the whole thing. It’s beyond repair. We’re shutting it down,” Musk said in a Feb. 3 livestreamed video.
However, the New Zealand foreign minister, who also met with Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday, said he held out hope that Washington would not turn back on its fight for influence in the Pacific.
“The first Trump administration turned more powerfully towards the Pacific … than any previous administration,” he said, “and now they’ve got Trump back again, and we hope for the same into the future.”
Edited by Malcolm Foster
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