The Pacific Island region is enormous and strategically critical for the United States because any westbound transit from Hawaii to Asia must pass through this region, making it essential to US access to the Indo-Pacific.

The US must establish diplomatic presence in the Pacific region by posting ambassadors in-country in the entire region, as the current situation (no ambassadors in country anywhere in the region) makes it very hard to compete when the US does not have personnel on the ground who know what is happening.

China has multiple strategic ambitions in the Pacific: expanding political influence, creating challenges for Pacific Island nations by shrinking their political maneuver space, complicating Australia and New Zealand's regional role, and making it harder for the US to transit to and through the region in times of crisis.

Australia's Foreign Minister Penny Wong called the Solomon Islands-China security agreement 'the largest failure in Australia post-war diplomacy' and subsequently led a policy shift to forge security agreements with nearly every Pacific Island nation not in the northern Pacific over the following 2-4 years.

Australia's foreign policy is fundamentally shaped by the strategic memory of the Battle of the Coral Sea in World War II, when Australia faced the possibility of being cut off from allies and forced to defend itself alone against a hostile power—a 'strategic DNA' that drives current policy against China.

The Trump administration's initial America First policies had cumulative negative effects on the Pacific region, including obliteration of US aid (the primary US contact point and conduit for Pacific engagement), tariffs hitting small Pacific economies at rates of 20-35%, visa restrictions limiting travel to these countries, and reallocation of US Coast Guard and naval assets to the western hemisphere rather than the western Pacific.

The US needs to maintain consistent attention to the Pacific region because it is bipartisan support and consistent equities affect US national security, but the islands' small size and relatively low spending (compared to Taiwan, Ukraine, Middle East) cause Pacific engagement to fall out of funding vehicles and prioritization more easily than major strategic items.

When discussing the Pacific Islands region, the US should avoid using language that connotes the islands are small and therefore unworthy of attention, as terms like 'Pacific backyard' or references to 'small states that don't matter much' are fundamentally disrespectful and contradict how one deals respectfully with other nations.