Speeches & Testimony

I rise today in support of my Pacific Partnership Act, co-introduced with Congresswoman Radewagen of American Samoa and cosponsored by 21 of our colleagues. A companion version of our bill was introduced in the U.S. Senate by Senator Cortez Masto of Nevada and Senator Ernst of Iowa.

Scattered across the three traditional Pacific subregions of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia are over two dozen jurisdictions collectively known as the Pacific Islands, including twelve independent states, countries in free association and territories. Though small in land area and population, the land plus maritime exclusive economic zones of all these jurisdictions combined exceed the land areas of China and Russia combined, comprising a significant part of the vast Pacific Ocean and our Earth’s surface.

The Pacific Islands region remains critical to our national security interests in the Indo-Pacific and advises greater U.S. engagement to advance our shared interests and values, particularly in the context of growing geopolitical competition and threats by our shared adversaries to endanger the pursuit of a free and open Indo-Pacific.

To bolster U.S. engagement with this region, we have reintroduced our Pacific Partnership Act, which passed the House unanimously in the 118th Congress. Our bill supports the tenets of the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent, the guiding framework of the Pacific Islands Forum, the region’s premier multilateral organization with eighteen members across Oceania.

Specifically, this bipartisan, bicameral bill would require the President to develop and submit to Congress a Strategy for Pacific Partnership, extend diplomatic privileges and immunities to the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) in the hopes that the PIF will establish a mission to the U.S., direct the President to consult and coordinate with allies and partners in the Pacific Islands region and update certain reports regarding transnational crime affecting the Pacific Islands.

I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this legislation to sustain and expand U.S. engagement in this critical region.