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, says New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters.

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 US Agency for International Development (USAID), for 90 days pending a “review” of all aid spending under his “America First” policy.

Peters told reporters on Monday after 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.”

Frenzied diplomatic battle
The Biden administration sought to rapidly expand US 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 would be shut down.

“You’ve got to basically get rid of the whole thing. It’s beyond repair. We’re shutting it down,” Musk said in a February 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.”

Radio Free Asia is an online news service affiliated with BenarNews. Republished from BenarNews with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Marshall Islands Journal editor Giff Johnson says US President Donald Trump’s decision on aid “is an opening for anybody else who wants to fill the gap” in the Pacific.

Trump froze all USAID for 90 days on his first day in office and is now looking to significantly reduce the size of the multi-billion dollar agency.

The Pacific is the world’s most aid dependent region, and Terence Wood from the Australian National University Development Policy Centre told RNZ Pacific this move would hit hard.

“The US is the Pacific’s largest aid donor and what is happening there is completely unprecedented . . .  there’s also a cruel irony that Elon Musk is the world’s wealthiest man and right now he seems to be calling the shots with decisions that are literally going to be life or death for the world’s poorest people . . .  it’s hard to wrap one’s head around,” he said.

Marshall Islands Journal owner and editor Giff Johnson on the USAID crisis. Video: RNZ Pacific

Wood was concerned about how the dismantling of USAID would impact the Pacific.

“It’s not a good time to be in the world’s most aid dependent region . . .  indeed Sāmoa PM Fiame Naomi Mata’afa has already expressed concern about what might happen to funding for organisations like the World Health Organisation . . .  so everyone is watching this with considerable alarm”.

‘It’s hard to believe that Trump has changed his sense’
Editor Johnson said said in an interview with RNZ Pacific last week that Trump’s shutdown of USAID was at odds with the increased engagement in the Pacific.

He said the move did not line up with the President’s rhetoric on China, and the fact the new US compact agreements were instigated by his administration the last time he was in power.

“So it’s hard to believe that Trump has changed his sense and I mean, he’s putting tariffs in on China, right? . . .  So that’s still very much in play,” Johnson said.

“It’s just like amazing to me that that they’re willing to undermine relationships in the Pacific that they claim to be a very important region for them.

“And you know, this is, I mean, certainly it’s an opening for anybody else who wants to fill the gap, I suppose, until Washington decides what it is doing.”

USAID shutdown bug thing for Pacific
Meanwhile, in the Cook Islands, the vice-chairperson of the Pacific energy regulators Alliance said Trump’s shutdown of USAID was a big deal for the region.

Dean Yarrall said his organisation was planning a multi-day training course on best practices in electricity regulation, funded by the US, which had now been called off.

He said the cancelling of the training course caught his organisation off guard.

“We’re seeing a lot of competition between parties, the Chinese are looking to increase the influence Australia as well and the US through USAID are big supporters of the Pacific so seeing USA sort of drop away, I think that will be a big thing,” Yarrall said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

In the wake of New Zealand’s recent election, and subsequent coalition negotiations, Winston Peters has emerged as New Zealand’s Foreign Minister again.

I’ve never been able to adequately explain why a populist politician leading a party called New Zealand First would have an interest in a post that takes him overseas so often. But there you go.

Peters is foreign minister and, because New Zealand has no minister for development, he is the politician in charge of New Zealand’s aid programme.

Fortunately, for those who want to work out what Peters will mean for aid, he has a track record.

He was first elected in 1978. Although he’s been voted out numerous times since then, at some point in his political wanderings he clearly stumbled upon a pile of political athanasia pills.

He keeps coming back. As he’s done this, he’s managed to snaffle the role of foreign minister in coalition agreements with the centre-left Labour party twice, in 2005 and 2017.

In his first two stints as foreign minister he was responsible enough. He proved very capable at playing the role of statesman and diplomat overseas.

Dreary back-office work
He also did the dreary back-office work that ministers need to do efficiently. When it came to aid — although it Is almost impossible to know Peters’s real views on anything — he appeared to believe New Zealand had a genuine obligation to help the Pacific.

Beyond that, he was hands-off and happy to let the aid programme be run by NZAid (in his first term) and MFAT (in his second term). By the time of his second term as foreign minister this was suboptimal — as I pointed out in my assessment of Nanaia Mahuta’s tenure as minister, the aid programme has numerous problems and could do with a minister who pushed it to improve.

On the other hand, as former foreign minister Murray McCully demonstrated with such vigour, aid programmes can suffer worse fates than hands-off ministers. Much better a minister who doesn’t meddle than a hands-on minister who thinks they understand aid when they don’t.

Peters was also able to use his role as a lynchpin in coalition governments to get the New Zealand aid budget increased. I don’t know whether this reflected a sincere desire to do more good in the world or whether he simply wanted the prestige of being a minister presiding over a growing portfolio.

Either way, it was a useful achievement.

This time round matters will likely be different though. Peters will probably continue to be a hands-off minister. But the government he is part of is conservative, comprising Peters’s New Zealand First, the centre-right National Party (the largest member of the coalition and currently Morrison-esque in ideology), and ACT, a libertarian party.

New Zealand is currently running a deficit. And the government has promised tax cuts. It is unlikely there will be money for more aid.

Right-wing rhetoric to win votes
Peters himself uses right-wing rhetoric to win votes and — to the extent his actual views can be divined — is conservative in many aspects of his politics. (He only ended up in coalition governments with Labour because of bad blood between him and earlier National politicians.)

Peters, who is 78, doesn’t appear to care about climate change. He is also a strong supporter of New Zealand’s alliance with Australia and the United States.

His views in both of these areas are shared with National and ACT, which could be bad news for New Zealand’s recently improved climate finance efforts. It may well mean a stronger stance on China’s presence in the Pacific too, with the result that geostrategy casts an even larger shadow over the quality of New Zealand aid.

On the other hand, it is possible that even the current government will start to feel embarrassed turning up to COP meetings and having to admit it is doing less to mitigate its own emissions and less on climate finance too.

Similarly, New Zealand’s politically conservative farmers need China as an export market. Perhaps a mix of political economy and international political economy will moderate the government’s approach to the new cold war in the Pacific.

Winston Peters has a track record. But he has never been predictable, and now he is part of a very conservative government, in the midst of uncertain times.

“Predictions are difficult”, Yogi Berra is said to have quipped, “especially about the future”. It’s currently a very hard time to predict the future of New Zealand aid, even with a familiar face at the helm.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The United States government’s overseas development aid arm US Agency for International Development (USAID) opened two new offices in Papua New Guinea and Fiji last week, pledging to assist Pacific island countries in addressing the sustainable development goals (SDGs).

The last USAID office in the region was closed over 25 years ago.

The haste with which the US re-established these offices with its Administrator, Dr Samantha Power — a former Harvard professor, flying from the US to officiate in the ceremonies in Suva and in Port Moresby in PNG on August 15 has also got some sceptics in the region questioning its motives.

Addressing Pacific youth at a ceremony at the University of the South Pacific, also attended by the Pacific Island Forum’s Secretary-General Henry Puna — a former prime minister of Cook Islands — Power said USAID was setting up an office in the Pacific to help them to directly “listen, learn, and better understand” the challenges that Pacific Island countries were facing.

“Our new mission here in Fiji and our office in Papua New Guinea — are not going to come in and impose our ideas or our solutions for the shared challenges that we face” she told an audience of students and academics from the region.

USP is one of only two regional universities in the world largely funded by regional countries. She described the two missions as “reinvigorated (US) commitment to the Pacific Islands”.

At a number of times during her 20-minute speech, Power emphasised that USAID only gave grants and they did not give loans.

“As we increase our investments here in the Pacific, I want to be very clear — and this is subject to some misunderstanding — so please, I hope I am very clear,” she said.

Not forcing nations
“The United States is not forcing nations to choose between partnering with the United States and partnering with other nations to meet their development goals.

“That said, we do want you to have a choice. It’s not a choice that we will make for you, but we want you to have options.

“We want Pacific Island nations to have more options to work with partners whose values and vision for the future align with your own.”

Although Dr Power did not mention China in her speech, this could be interpreted as a reference to the Chinese presence in the Pacific and the “rules-based order” the US and its allies claim to promote in the region.

She immediately added to the above comments by pointing out that USAID only gives grants.

“We are very interested in economic independence, and independence of choice and not saddling future generations with attachments and debts that will later have to be paid,” she said.

“And we will engage with you openly, transparently, with respect for individual dignity and the benefits of inclusive governance, the benefits of being held accountable by your citizens, and we will join you in seeking to combat corrupt dealings that can enrich elites often at the expense of everyday citizens.”

Training farmers in new techniques
Another area where they would allocate funding would be training farmers in new techniques to grapple with changing weather patterns and encroaching salt water.

She also announced the launch of a new initiative, a Blue Carbon Assessment, to quantify the true value of the marine carbon sinks across the Blue Pacific continent.

Referring to Dr Power’s comments about reinvigorating the US’s commitment to the region, Maureen Penjueli, coordinator of the Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG), told IDN that this was a way to frame the US as a partner of choice by allowing the islanders to determine what is a priority in terms of their development.

“The US is not the only development partner that is suggesting this,” she added, “Australia’s recent Development Policy attempts to frame themselves is no different.”

Referring to US ally Australia’s aid policies, she pointed out that for decades there has been accusation of tied aid, “boomerang aid” by many of our development partners — or how aid is an extension of foreign policy and therefore it is by its nature extractive — an iron fist in a velvet glove”.

“But its other implication is to subtly suggest that the US and its allies’ goals are unlike what China does, which is to ‘extract concessions’ through this relationship either through ensuring that Chinese companies get the contracts, Chinese labour is recruited (as well as) many other forms of accusation of Chinese engagement in the region,” Penjueli said.

During an interaction with the local media after her speech, a local television reporter told Dr Power that critics had been quick to say that the US was ramping up support in the greater Indo-Pacific region because it believed that American dominance was at risk.

“How do you respond to such an observation? And why should Pacific leaders choose US diplomatic support over Chinese support?”, the reporter asked.

“Lots of experience around the world is the recognition that governance and human rights, and economic development go hand in hand,” Dr Power replied.

“You can have economic development without human rights, but it’s almost impossible to have inclusive economic development that reaches broad segments of the population.

“So, we really believe that a development model that values transparency, that ensures that private sector investment is conducted in a manner that benefits broad swaths of the population rather than like a couple of government officials who take a bribe or pay a bribe.”

Grants at a time of a different model
Dr Power also added that USAID gave grants at a time when others were pushing a very different model, “which is much more about concentrating both political and economic power, which tends to stifle the voices of citizens to hold their leaders accountable, allows officials to do what they believe is right, but without checks and balances”.

USAID is representing the reopening of the two offices as a follow up to President Biden’s meeting with the Pacific leaders in Washington DC last year.

Its Manila-based deputy assistant director of USAID, Betty Chung, has told Radio New Zealand that currently there are just two staffers in Fiji but by the end of the year, they hope to have eight to 10 there, building up to about 30.

Also the USAID budget for the Pacific has tripled in the past three years.

In a joint press conference in Port Moresby, PNG Prime Minister James Marape has welcomed USAID’s renewed commitments to the region and said that Power’s presence completes what is President Biden’s 3D strategy — diplomacy, defence, and development — in the focus to revamp the US presence in PNG and the Pacific.

He also referred to recent defence agreements signed with the US but said that it should not be a one-way relationship on how they relate to the US. He asked Power and UNAID to assist PNG in preserving their forest resources.

Pacific people need to watch
Pointing out that PNG is home to one-third of the world’s forests and 67 percent of global biodiversity, Marape said that he had asked Dr Power to take the message back to the US and particularly to Congress “who sometimes offer resistance to support to emerging nations” — to help PNG to preserve its forest resources to offset the US “huge carbon footprint”.

Referring to Dr Power’s undertaking that she came to the Pacific to listen, Penjueli said that people in the Pacific needed to watch how USAID could translate this listening exercise into grant-making and in which areas and how they do it.

“For Pacific Island governments, I do believe that they are in a better place, this gives them more options to consider if they (foreign donors) support their own development needs particularly in the current context of a climate emergency, post-pandemic debt stress economies and an ongoing Ukraine war.”

Dr Kalinga Seneviratne is a Sri Lanka-born journalist, broadcaster and international communications specialist. He is currently a consultant to the journalism programme at the University of the South Pacific. He is also the former head of research at the Asian Media Information and Communication Center (AMIC) in Singapore and the Asia-Pacific editor of InDepth News (IDN), the flagship agency of the non-profit International Press Syndicate. This article is republished under content sharing agreement between Asia Pacific Report and IDN.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Three new covid-19 cases have been confirmed in the kingdom of Tonga bringing the total number to five as the country went into a five-day lockdown.

In a press conference in Nuku’alofa yesterday afternoon, Tonga’s Prime Minister Hu’akavameiliku said that a woman and her two children had tested positive for the virus.

The latest transmission comes less than 24 hours after two men were confirmed to have contracted covid-19 yesterday.

The two men were port workers and are currently now confined in isolation at Taliai Camp, a Tongan military base.

The pair had been collecting emergency supplies from foreign aid ships arriving in Tonga and were among 50 frontline workers who had been tested for the virus.

The prime minister did not reveal which ships the men had collected supplies from, leaving the source of the transmission open to speculation.

Nuku’alofa harbour is reportedly full of supply ships laden with aid, including the Australian  ship HMAS Adelaide, which had confirmed before arriving in Tonga that 29 of its crew were in isolation on board after testing positive for covid-19.

Source of virus unclear
Tonga’s Parliamentary Speaker, Lord Fakafanua, told RNZ Pacific today that it was not clear how the two men contracted the virus.

He said that the covid-19 outbreak could not have happened at a worse time with covid-19 restrictions interfering with much needed aid deliveries.

The kingdom is still in the early stages of recovery from the devastating Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcanic eruption and tsunami, that left hundreds of Tongans homeless and properties damaged last month.

“The Prime Minister has reassured me this morning that the aid that is currently being distributed in Tonga will continue, the work that His Majesty’s Armed Forces is doing on the ground will continue under the lockdown because they are an essential service,” Lord Fakafanua said.

The country is polluted with volcanic ash that has fouled water supplies and carpeted the land with dust.

Two weeks after the disaster, telecommunications are yet to be re-established in most of Tonga, with no outsiders being able to make mobile or phone calls into the Vava’u and Ha’apai group of islands.

Lord Fakafanua also said there were worries about a potential covid-19 outbreak in Vava’u, as a close contact of one of the new covid-19 cases in Tonga had visited Vava’u over the week.

Contact tracing stepped up
The government has stepped up contact tracing measures in order to ring fence community transmission of covid-19.

Lockdown rules in Tonga will require everyone to remain at home, to practise social distancing, and to wear face masks in public.

Essential workers are exempted from restrictions of movement, such as Red Cross and aid distribution personnel, who would be allowed to operate freely.

According to Tonga’s Ministry of Health, more than 83 percent of the population of the eligible population (over the age of 12) have been fully vaccinated.

Exactly 73,938 people (over the age of 12) have been vaccinated at least once, representing 96 percent of those eligible for testing.

The Tongan government said at last night’s press conference that the lockdown would be reassessed 48 hours after its enforcement.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Anti-corruption efforts in Papua New Guinea have received a major boost of €5.4 million (about K21.7 million) in funding from the European Union, to be injected over three years.

United Nation Development Programme (UNDP) country representative Dirk Wagener said during the launch of an anti-corruption project in Port Moresby on Friday that corruption had hindered Papua New Guinea’s development.

“The European Union will provide €5.4 million to this project, in addition to the funding which will be made directly to the government of Papua New Guinea to implement key components of the government’s anti-corruption strategy and plan of action,” he said.

Wagener said the strategy recognised that combating corruption was a necessary precondition for national development and was fundamental to ensuring that people could benefit from the services and goods due them.

“It is, simply put, a precondition for achieving Papua New Guinea’s national development vision and aspirations.”

He said that if not addressed, corruption would impact on PNG’s achievement of the sustainable development goals.

Wagener said the project had four outcomes designed to strengthen local capacities to tackle corruption effectively in which both government and non-governmental organisations would participate:

• Outcome one is designed to support the implementation and monitoring of the national government’s strategy plan of action;
• Outcome two will focus on establishing a fully operational Independent Commission Against Corruption;
• Outcome three will focus on strengthening existing anti-corruption investigation and prosecution actors; and
• Outcome four recognises the role of the public and civil society have to play in preventing corruption.

“The project will work with the Royal PNG Constabulary’s national and provincial anti-corruption and fraud units and the office of the Public Solicitor,” Wagener said.

Anti-corruption top of agenda
In November 2020, Loop PNG reported that Transparency International PNG congratulated Papua New Guinea on the passing of the Organic Law on the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC).

“The campaign against corruption must be placed at the top of the agendas of our societies. Unless corruption is checked, it will poison our ways of life and corrode standards,” said chairman Peter Aitsi.

“At TIPNG, we welcome this law and the eventual establishment of the ICAC in our country. It is our hope that this body will further empower people in PNG to take action against corruption and work to protect the integrity of the people, society and nation of Papua New Guinea.”

He said that once established, the primary functions of the ICAC would be to:

• Prevent and reduce corrupt conduct, undertake research, recommend systems, strategies, practices and policies;
• Investigate and prosecute corrupt conduct; and
• Arrest a person of corrupt conduct.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz