Successive U.S. administrations have positioned the United States as a Pacific nation. In 1903, then-President Theodore Roosevelt set out that path by declaring, “The Pacific era, destined to be the greatest of all, is just at its dawn.” More than a century later, during a 2009 visit to Tokyo, Barack Obama described himself as “America’s first Pacific president,” referencing his birth in Hawaii as he foreshadowed the U.S. “pivot” to the Pacific. In 2022, President Joe Biden reaffirmed that lineage, stating, “The United States is a proud Pacific power.” President Donald Trump, whose administration otherwise rejects much of the language of partnership, has asserted that “the United States is and always will be an Indo-Pacific nation.”

What it means for the United States to be a Pacific nation, however, has never been settled. Today, the United States increasingly defines its Pacific identity not through people, mobility, or shared prosperity, but through the region’s strategic utility. Under the current administration, the United States is scaling back people-centered initiatives in the Pacific islands while accelerating militarization through measures such as building and upgrading military facilities, largely framed as a response to strategic competition with China. This approach sits uneasily with the priorities articulated by Pacific Islanders, who consistently emphasize human security concerns, such as livelihoods and climate change, over great-power rivalry.

Successive U.S. administrations have positioned the United States as a Pacific nation. In 1903, then-President Theodore Roosevelt set out that path by declaring, “The Pacific era, destined to be the greatest of all, is just at its dawn.” More than a century later, during a 2009 visit to Tokyo, Barack Obama described himself as “America’s first Pacific president,” referencing his birth in Hawaii as he foreshadowed the U.S. “pivot” to the Pacific. In 2022, President Joe Biden reaffirmed that lineage, stating, “The United States is a proud Pacific power.” President Donald Trump, whose administration otherwise rejects much of the language of partnership, has asserted that “the United States is and always will be an Indo-Pacific nation.”

What it means for the United States to be a Pacific nation, however, has never been settled. Today, the United States increasingly defines its Pacific identity not through people, mobility, or shared prosperity, but through the region’s strategic utility. Under the current administration, the United States is scaling back people-centered initiatives in the Pacific islands while accelerating militarization through measures such as building and upgrading military facilities, largely framed as a response to strategic competition with China. This approach sits uneasily with the priorities articulated by Pacific Islanders, who consistently emphasize human security concerns, such as livelihoods and climate change, over great-power rivalry.

Four years ago, the Pacific Islands Forum, the region’s leading multilateral grouping representing 18 countries and territories, endorsed a 2050 strategy for Oceania. While acknowledging heightened geostrategic competition in the region, the 2050 strategy defines security as something broader than raw military power. It aims to secure a resilient future for Oceania through seven interconnected thematic areas, including inclusive development, collective security, sustainable economics, climate resilience, and oceanic stewardship.

Nowhere is this disconnect clearer than in U.S. policies on Pacific mobility. Citizens of the freely associated states—countries with a special treaty relationship with the United States—of the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and Palau have visa-free access to the United States, whereas the remaining Pacific island countries must bear the brunt of the Trump administration’s travel bans.

In recent months, Washington has imposed new restrictions on Fijian immigrant visas, placed a partial visa ban on Tongans, and required bonds of up to $15,000 for visitors from Fiji, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu. These measures come alongside other decisions that undercut people-centered engagement in the region, including new tariffs on Pacific island exports, the withdrawal of programs across the region that had been supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the cancellation of key climate commitments and financing mechanisms. In January, the United States quit the South Pacific Regional Environment Programme, the primary intergovernmental environmental organization in the Pacific that Washington itself co-founded in 1993.

Mobility matters in Oceania, as does access to the United States. An estimated 1.6 million Pacific Islanders, including native Hawaiians, live in the United States. While they make up just 0.5 percent of the overall U.S. population, they represent a vital transnational community for Pacific states. Tongans and Fijians, among those most affected by recent visa restrictions, number approximately 79,000 and 54,000, respectively, and are concentrated largely in western states such as California, Hawaii, Utah, and Washington. For communities with strained job markets and deep traditions of circular migration, mobility is essential not only for income and remittances but also for maintaining family and cultural ties.

Amid intensifying strategic competition, the United States demands that Pacific Islanders shoulder the burden of both growing mobility restrictions and militarization. China looms largest in U.S. strategic thinking, and militarization dominates Washington’s regional response. Recent innovations include the United States’ Defense Cooperation Agreement with Papua New Guinea, expansion and restoration of the Northern Field airfield in the Northern Mariana Islands, as well as construction of a new radar facility and the rehabilitation of a World War II-era airstrip in Palau.

Some scholars now describe the region not simply as a strategic space but as a “sacrifice zone,” where local communities bear the risks of great-power rivalry. This framing echoes the region’s experience during World War II, when Pacific islands became key battlegrounds and military bases, bringing large-scale destruction, displacement, and environmental damage to local communities.

While Washington builds fences, Beijing is pursuing a starkly different approach. China has expanded its diplomatic footprint and security presence in the Pacific through a 2022 agreement with the Solomon Islands and increased policing cooperation with several regional governments. Yet it has simultaneously invested in visible, community-level development projects, including roads, government buildings, sports facilities, and renewable energy infrastructure in Oceania.

This “small and beautiful” strategy aims to build credibility among Pacific Islanders, according to the Lowy Institute. China has also expanded mutual visa exemption arrangements with Pacific island states such as Fiji (2015), Samoa (2025), the Solomon Islands (2024), and Tonga (2016), signaling a commitment to mobility and exchange. In 2023, surveys conducted in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands on China’s expanding footprint found that locals generally supported closer ties with Beijing; however, they also expressed concerns over the environmental impacts and debt risks of commercial engagement.

In absolute terms, far fewer Pacific Islanders live in China than in the United States. As a result, U.S. aviation links to the region remain stronger, with direct commercial flights to five Pacific island states (the Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, and Samoa) from Hawaii and the West Coast. China offers one direct flight from Guangzhou to Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea, operated by China Southern Airlines, reflecting the strong ties between China’s southern provinces and Oceania. But China is expanding its air connectivity through a one-stop option to Honiara, the capital of the Solomon Islands, and a proposed addition to the Hong Kong to Nadi, Fiji, route with a direct flight from the Chinese mainland.

As strategic competition between the United States and China has heightened, Australia and New Zealand have demonstrated what a people-centered Pacific policy could look like. While the two states’ initiatives are imperfect, they recognize mobility as an essential pillar of regional partnership rather than a security threat to be managed.

Both countries have seasonal labor programs, creating reliable remittance flows that deepen bilateral links. In 2023, Australia and Tuvalu signed the Falepili Union treaty on climate-induced mobility, which provides a voluntary migration pathway to Australia for residents of the low-lying Pacific nation. Movement driven by economic necessity or climate vulnerability reflects deeper structural inequalities and does not, on its own, resolve them. Yet New Zealand’s 2023 review of its Recognised Seasonal Employer scheme reflects an effort to acknowledge harms, correct abuses, and better align mobility with development outcomes. As part of a package of reforms, seasonal workers now hold multi-entry visas, enabling them to return home for family events or bereavements without losing their work status.

Consistent and beneficial mobility options for Pacific Islanders—particularly for work, education, and family reunification—can serve as a form of strategic engagement that does not rely on militarization. Strategic competition with China is not only about weapons systems or base access; it is also about credibility and trust. Demonstrating that movement is welcome and that Pacific Islanders are treated as partners would do more to ground U.S. influence in the region than just adding military infrastructure.

Unfortunately, the prospects for reorienting the United States’ Pacific policy toward people-centered engagement look bleak, at least under the Trump administration. Absent such a shift, the Pacific risks reverting to a heavily militarized space, where communities that already bore the costs of World War II and Cold War nuclear testing are asked to shoulder them again.