Former US Ambassador Judith Cefkin provides a sobering assessment of how the Trump administration's foreign policy shifts are reshaping American engagement with Pacific Island nations. Drawing on her 35-year diplomatic career and experience as US Ambassador to Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Tonga and Tuvalu from 2015-2018, Cefkin warns that the administration's withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, dismantling of USAID, and proposed 85% cuts to international affairs funding threaten to undermine decades of carefully built relationships. She contrasts America's retreat from soft power engagement with China's consistent approach to the region, while noting that some programs like the Millennium Challenge Corporation's work in Kiribati may survive. Overall, the US’s trajectory represents a dramatic scaling back at precisely the moment when strategic competition in the Pacific is intensifying.
Former US Ambassador Judith Cefkin provides a sobering assessment of how the Trump administration's foreign policy shifts are reshaping American engagement with Pacific Island nations. Drawing on her 35-year diplomatic career and experience as US Ambassador to Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Tonga and Tuvalu from 2015-2018, Cefkin warns that the administration's withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, dismantling of USAID, and proposed 85% cuts to international affairs funding threaten to undermine decades of carefully built relationships. She contrasts America's retreat from soft power engagement with China's consistent approach to the region, while noting that some programs like the Millennium Challenge Corporation's work in Kiribati may survive. Overall, the US’s trajectory represents a dramatic scaling back at precisely the moment when strategic competition in the Pacific is intensifying.
The conversation opens with Cefkin outlining the fundamental challenges facing US-Pacific relations under the second Trump administration. She identifies two immediate concerns that have deeply unsettled Pacific Island nations: the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, which she describes as a "bitter pill" for countries that view climate change as their primary security threat, and the freeze on aid programs coupled with the dismantling of USAID. These moves come after years of increased American attention to the region that began during the first Trump administration and accelerated under President Biden, making the reversal particularly jarring for Pacific partners who had grown accustomed to expanded US engagement.
Cefkin provides stark details about the scale of proposed cuts to American foreign assistance. The administration has requested a 49% reduction in the International Affairs Budget for fiscal year 2026, while simultaneously attempting to claw back funding already appropriated for the current fiscal year. If both measures succeed, the result would be an unprecedented 85% cut to programs that fund both diplomatic operations and development assistance. While these are global figures that don't specify Pacific impacts, Cefkin emphasises that competition for increasingly scarce resources will make it difficult for Pacific programs to maintain funding levels. The human cost extends beyond aid recipients to include a brain drain within the State Department itself, as experienced professionals retire early or leave government service just when their expertise is most needed.
The discussion reveals how comprehensively the cuts would affect US engagement tools in the Pacific. Educational exchange programs face potential budget reductions of up to 93%, threatening scholarships that bring Pacific students to American universities and short-term training programs that have built people-to-people connections for decades. The East-West Center in Honolulu, which Cefkin describes as "a vital platform for convening US and Pacific Island officials and citizens," faces existential threats from budget cutbacks. Even successful programs aren't immune — while the Millennium Challenge Corporation's threshold program in Kiribati continues to help young people develop workforce skills, the institution itself was targeted for elimination by the administration's efficiency commission, though it has survived thus far.
Geopolitical implications emerge as a central concern throughout the conversation. Cefkin notes that China has already begun capitalising on perceived American disengagement, with the Chinese foreign minister recently hosting officials from eleven Pacific Island countries in Beijing where he "painted the United States as being disengaged and disinterested" while announcing new assistance programs. She describes China's approach as consistent and long-term, contrasting it with what Fiji's former ambassador to the US termed America's "stop-start relationships" that Pacific nations find deeply frustrating. This dynamic plays out against a backdrop of increasing Chinese economic leverage, with 2025 marking a critical year when ten Pacific Island countries must make record-high debt repayments to China based on loans accepted in the 2010s.
The interview explores the unique relationships with the Freely Associated States — Federated States of Micronesia, Palau, and the Marshall Islands — which receive the bulk of US assistance to the Pacific. Cefkin explains how these countries maintain sovereignty while granting the US defence rights in exchange for substantial financial support administered through multiple federal agencies rather than traditional foreign aid channels. She expresses concern about implementation capacity as the agencies managing these programs face their own staff and budget reductions, though the compact funding itself appears more secure than other assistance programs. The discussion also touches on the stalled US tuna treaty, which remains stuck in Congress despite its economic importance to Pacific Island nations and symbolic value as a concrete expression of partnership.
Military engagement emerges as the one area where US involvement continues to grow, with Cefkin acknowledging the strategic importance of defence partnerships while warning against an overly militarised approach. She describes valuable programs like ship-rider agreements that help Pacific nations patrol their vast maritime territories and counter illegal fishing that costs them millions in lost revenue. However, she emphasises that military cooperation alone cannot substitute for the comprehensive engagement that includes development assistance, educational exchanges, and diplomatic presence. The shift from soft power to hard power tools risks making the US a less attractive partner for Pacific nations seeking balanced relationships that address their development needs while respecting their sovereignty.
The conversation concludes with Cefkin's reflections on the future of US-Pacific relations and the role of Congress in potentially moderating the administration's approach. She notes that bipartisan support for Pacific engagement has traditionally transcended party lines, citing testimony before Congress where both Democratic and Republican members expressed strong interest in strengthening regional relationships. Her hope is that Congress will recognise that maintaining Pacific programs requires relatively modest investments that yield disproportionate benefits for US interests. However, she acknowledges the fluid and uncertain nature of the current situation, with much depending on how Congress responds to the administration's budget requests and whether traditional supporters of Pacific engagement can make their voices heard above competing priorities.
Opening grab [Judith Cefkin]: Recently, the Chinese foreign minister hosted a meeting with senior officials from 11 of the Pacific Island countries in Beijing, and in that he painted the United States as being disengaged and disinterested. So really, if the US wants to compete, we have to be able to offer something. We can't just counter with rhetoric. Withdrawing our aid presence really does take away a major tool that we use to demonstrate our friendship and our concern for the countries.
Acknowledgement: We wish to acknowledge the indigenous people of Australia, the wider Asia-Pacific region and other parts of the world, and express our respect for their traditional knowledge and practices which stem from a deep connection to the lands and waters they have inhabited for millennia.
Robin Davies: Welcome to Devpolicy Talks, the podcast of the Development Policy Centre. We're part of the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University on Ngunnawal and Ngambri country in Canberra. I'm Robin Davies. This is our 12th season, and we're bringing you a mix of interviews, event recordings and in-depth features on topics central to our research: Australia's overseas aid, development in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific, and other regional and global development issues. This week's episode is a conversation between Gordon Peake and Judith Cefkin, who's a former US ambassador to Fiji and several other Pacific Island countries, now retired. Gordon is a Canberra-based writer, podcaster and consultant with deep expertise in international development and Pacific governance. Until recently, he was Senior Advisor for the Pacific Islands at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, DC. He's the author of two books, Beloved Land, about Timor-Leste, and Unsung Land, Aspiring Nation, about Bougainville. He has also hosted two podcast series, Statecraftiness and Memorandum of Understanding. He's well known for his engaging storytelling about the complexities of aid and nation building. Here's Gordon.
Gordon Peake: Judith Cefkin brings over three decades of diplomatic expertise to discussions of US Pacific relations, having served 35 years as a career Foreign Service officer representing the United States around the world. Her distinguished career culminated in her appointment as US Ambassador to Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Tonga and Tuvalu from 2015 to 2018 during a critical period of renewed American attention to the Pacific Islands. Throughout her diplomatic service, Cefkin worked under the leadership of four Republican and three Democratic presidents. She's now retired and living in Virginia as a private citizen, although remains an active member of the American Foreign Service Association. In this wide-ranging interview, Cefkin provides a clear-eyed assessment of how the second Trump administration's America First foreign policy is reshaping US engagement with Pacific Island nations. She's concerned that the administration's decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement represents a, quote, "bitter pill" for Pacific Island countries who have identified climate change as their number one security threat. More dramatically still, the freezing of aid programs and the dismantling of USAID combined with proposed cuts of up to 85% to the International Affairs Budget threatens to fundamentally undermine decades of carefully built relationships across the region. Cefkin's analysis reveals the practical implications of these policy shifts from the gutting of educational exchange programs, which face up to 93% budget cuts, to threats against institutions like the East-West Center in Honolulu, while she notes that some programs like the Millennium Challenge Corporation's work in Kiribati may survive. The overall trajectory represents a dramatic retreat from soft power engagement, and she contrasts this with China's consistent long-term approach to the region, noting how Chinese officials are already capitalising on perceived American disengagement by painting the US as unreliable and offering alternative partnerships. Cefkin describes also the human costs of these changes within the US foreign policy establishment itself. The dismantling of USAID and planned reductions in force at the State Department are driving a brain drain of experienced professionals just when their expertise is needed the most. Her insider's perspective reveals an administration that while maintaining military engagement and defence partnerships, appears to be abandoning the comprehensive diplomatic toolkit that has traditionally made America an attractive partner for Pacific Island nations seeking to balance development needs with sovereignty concerns. Years, finally, drawing on her experiences as the US representative who signed the amended tuna treaty in 2016, Cefkin illustrates that even diplomatic achievements now face uncertain futures with inaction on the part of the US Congress threatening both symbolic cooperation and practical economic partnerships worth millions to Pacific Island economies. Her assessment suggests that America's Pacific pivot, which gained bipartisan support across previous administrations, may be stalling at precisely the moment when China is most actively seeking to expand its influence in the Pacific Islands region.
Judith Cefkin: Hello, I'm Judith Cefkin. I'm a retired career Foreign Service officer for the US government and a former ambassador. I served for 35 years as a Foreign Service officer representing the United States around the world, and that included a posting — I had the great privilege of serving as the US Ambassador to Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Tonga and Tuvalu from 2015 to 2018. I'm now retired, private citizen living happily in Virginia in the United States.
Gordon Peake: Judith, it's wonderful to be connected with you again. We came to know each other really well when I lived in Washington, DC. I spent many happy years there as a senior advisor on the Pacific Islands at the United States Institute of Peace, and you were having a very active and fulfilling retirement after a long Foreign Service career that culminated in an ambassadorship to Fiji, Nauru, Kiribati, Tonga and Tuvalu. We've shared a stage on a number of occasions talking about the United States and the Pacific Islands, because when I was there in Washington, DC, this was a time when the Pacific Islands was rising in political importance in Washington, DC. Started during the first Trump administration, continued further during the Biden administration, and it was a time when the United States seemed to be rediscovering the Pacific again after many long years of relative neglect. I left at the turn of last year and at the turn of one administration to another, and when we at the Development Policy Centre were seeking a perspective on how the new Trump administration is taking an attitude to the Pacific amidst the context of the abolition of USAID and a very clear America First foreign policy, we thought that you would be the ideal person to offer that perspective. You're a person that I've always turned to for advice and a clear, sober perspective on the world, and I'm really glad that you've agreed to join us here today. I want to begin just by asking you, maybe to just articulate what the sort of changes in the aid landscape are since the arrival of the Trump administration on January 20, 2025, as relates to the Pacific.
Judith Cefkin: Well, thank you so much, Gordon. Let me first just start off by saying it's great to be reconnected with you and thank you very much for this opportunity to discuss this topic, which I know is near and dear to both our hearts. I wanted to just say that I think that the US really has enjoyed a long and enduring friendship and partnership with the countries of the Pacific Island region. The relationship with the region is an important one. Obviously, we share stewardship of the ocean that connects us. And I think by and large, our relationship has been grounded in common values. You know, we prize our sovereignty, our freedom, and having fought the bloody battles of World War Two together, we want the region to be one of peace and prosperity. But I do worry that there are several moves that have been taken by the current administration that are really testing these bonds of friendship. And maybe just to mention before we talk a little bit about the aid picture. As you know, of course, the region is really on the front lines of rising sea levels and other impacts of climate change, and they, in fact, have identified this as their number one security threat. So, the decision by the administration to pull out of the Paris Agreement, and, more broadly, to retreat from our global climate leadership is, I think, a bitter pill for the Pacific Island countries to swallow. And then on top of that, as you say, the fact that one of the first acts by the new administration was to freeze all our aid programs and to dismantle the US Agency for International Development is also extremely unsettling for the countries in the region. And as you noted, the Trump administration, first administration, had actually increased our aid to the region, and then that also was extended further by the previous administration, and we increased our presence, our aid presence, and also the projects in the Pacific that were really focused on helping these countries build resilience, tackle health challenges and promote economic growth. So right now, I would say the situation is very fluid, and there's probably more that we don't know than what we do know. We know, of course, that programs were frozen. A number of programs were cancelled. I don't have details, unfortunately, as to the specific impacts on the programs in the Pacific, but what I can tell you is that currently, Congress is considering a number of bills or a number of actions, and one is the request by the administration for the funding for the 2026 fiscal year, which begins in September. For the budget, and the cuts being proposed are very draconian. So, there is the request for the International Affairs Budget, which is what funds our diplomatic programs and our assistance, is being proposed to be cut 49% — so almost a half from what it was in the current fiscal year. And on top of that, the administration is also trying to pull back funding that was appropriated in the current fiscal year. And if both those things were to go through Congress, we would be looking at an 85% cut to the International Affairs Budget. So again, the budget that funds our diplomatic operations and our assistance. Now that's a global number, so I can't say exactly how that will impact the programs we have in the Pacific Island countries, but obviously it's going to be increasingly difficult to, you know, claim part of those scarce resources if those full cuts are approved.
Gordon Peake: If you think also in the last administration, a number of diplomatic posts were opened, part of a kind of push by the United States into the Pacific. So, what you're basically saying is that these posts might remain open, but their budgets to actually do anything are going to be rather reduced. And in the kind of numbers game of aid and the numbers game of influence in the Pacific, that's going to put the US really on the back foot. So, you have ambassadors that don't have a lot of money to throw around, for want of a better term.
Judith Cefkin: That's very true, unfortunately. And okay, we're talking about the programs that were administered by the US Agency for International Development. But that's not the only form of aid that the US government has that we've been able to use to enhance our engagement and our partnerships with the Pacific Island countries. Another area of assistance has been educational scholarships and training programs where we bring students from the Pacific Island regions to the United States for long-term study programs, as well as programs where we bring students and officials from these countries to come to the United States for study tours. And also training that we take to Pacific Island countries in a wide array of areas, including media training, including building law enforcement capacity. So again, those are really critical ways that we engage the Pacific, and we strengthen our bonds. And again, looking at the budget request from the administration, they're proposing some pretty draconian cuts to a number of these programs. I think the educational programs they're talking about up to a 90-93% cut in the budget. They're also, I think you're probably familiar with the East-West Center in Honolulu, which is a vital platform for convening US and Pacific Island officials and citizens of our countries to come together for training and for meetings, and that's also being threatened — the East-West Center, among a number of institutions that's being threatened by budget cutbacks.
Gordon Peake: Let me ask you a question then about the Millennium Challenge Corporation in Kiribati, and then we can kind of pivot to that. So, we've talked about a number of the cuts across the board, across the whole portfolio of US investment. I wonder if I can draw you in to talk a little bit more about a country that was of elevated importance to the United States in the last couple of years of the Biden administration. That was the Republic of Kiribati. There was a great deal of attention being paid to that country. There was talk about Canton Island being one of the kind of airstrips from the Second World War that was again a renewed focus of attention. Kiribati was also the recipient of Millennium Challenge Corporation funding, which is something that dates back to the Bush administration, but is a way, in some ways, of the United States sort of showing attention and showing favour to countries that it wants to enjoy a relationship with. Kiribati was one of the recipients of Millennium Challenge Corporation funding. Has that funding stopped? Is that funding going on? It would be great to get some insights from your contacts in Tarawa on this, and from your own knowledge of this. And maybe might be useful to begin by talking about what is the Millennium Challenge Corporation? What does it precisely do?
Judith Cefkin: Yes, the Millennium Challenge Corporation was, as you say, something initiated by President Bush, and it was really designed to be, in some ways, maybe a very nimble assistance tool that seeks to, in part, reward countries that are, you know, doing the right thing in terms of their development policies and to help them in a very specific area. So, it's very concentrated on a challenge the country has that is identified by the country in consultation with the Millennium Challenge Corporation and development experts, and then it's a multi-year program that helps tackle that. And there are different levels of assistance that the Millennium Challenge Corporation has. The bigger programs are called compacts. And I believe that Vanuatu was a recipient of one of the MCC's compacts that focused on infrastructure development. But in the case of Kiribati, they were the recipient of something called a threshold program, and the area that was identified by Kiribati to tackle was really to try to eliminate some constraints to economic growth, and specifically to help equip the young people of Kiribati with the tools they need to be competitive in the modern workforce. So, the program was finalised. I think it's been maybe a little over a year since it began, and my impression is, from what I've been able to see, that it's been quite successful. It's, for example, brought young people from Kiribati to the United States for special English study, and it's worked with the government of Kiribati on some of their labour laws and making sure that when the people from Kiribati take advantage of some of the programs that other countries in the Pacific offer, in particular, Australia, New Zealand, with their seasonal worker programs, that the people are well equipped to take advantage of those programs and to gain those work opportunities and to be successful. So, I believe that fortunately, the MCC's program is still ongoing. There was some talk, I think, by the notorious DOGE service, of eliminating MCC but it has not been eliminated. Nonetheless, there are, again, you know, we're looking at probably some reductions to the MCC budget. And I should just say that really, the amount of money that the MCC has is really quite small in the grand scheme of things, in terms of the US development assistance budget, but it has a very big impact. So, for a little bit of money, you're really getting a lot of impact. So, but my hope is, based on what I've been able to see so far, in the budget request, there is still some remaining funding. So, my hope is that that will allow the United States to complete its threshold commitment to Kiribati.
Gordon Peake: Yeah, I mean relatively small money in the grand scale of things. I mean, it's 1.7 billion out of 79 billions of US foreign assistance. But in a place like Kiribati, quite significant in a way, because I found on the Center for Global Development that MCC grants in Kiribati make up a large percentage of their gross national income. It's like 6% of the gross national income of Kiribati. Is MCC related, so not an insignificant figure in a place like that. And you mentioned the notorious DOGE service, I mean, probably the subject for another while, because I fell foul myself of the notorious DOGE service and got, like, also too many of my colleagues at the United States Institute of Peace were terminated by that. The Institute is back up and running. Just, I think, though, I think it's kind of going to be a rocky passageway for them to navigate over the next few times. I wanted to ask you just a question about the kind of geopolitics of this, Judith. I mean, there's obviously a United States in the Pacific, you know, shared ocean, you know, shared values. You know, people-to-people connections. But there's also a geopolitical dimension to this as well, and we would be blind Freddie if we didn't realise that the reason why the Trump administration and the Biden administration were refocusing on the Pacific Islands was not just to recall the ties of the Second World War, but also because the region itself was becoming increasingly important in the geopolitics of this. I was in Vanuatu a couple of weeks ago, and it felt like a, you know, it felt like a kind of minor Graham Greene novel, in terms of the backdrop to it, in terms of all the great power competition that was going on there. What are the impacts of the US taking itself off the board, to a large extent, in terms of its role in the Pacific, you know, the aid going, all those other programs that you mentioned, tapering off. The future budget being cut down. What are the kinds of geopolitical impacts that that will potentially ramify out of this?
Judith Cefkin: Well, I think you've really hit the nail on the head, Gordon. That really, you know, as far as US interest goes, the main impact of these cutbacks and pulling back on these programs is the question about how the US fares in the geostrategic competition with China. And I would just make the footnote that this is the lens through which the US views many of our relations around the world. I realise that it's not the lens through which the Pacific Island countries want to view the relations. They don't want to be put in the position of being put in the middle and having to choose between the United States and China as partners. But the reality is, as you say, is that you know, as China has increased its presence and its influence in the region, that it's really caught the attention of officials here in Washington, of policy makers. And so there very much is an impact. I think that you know China — well, recently, the Chinese foreign minister with senior officials from 11 of the Pacific Island countries in Beijing, and in that he painted the United States as being disengaged and disinterested. And he, you know, vowed to further increase China's support for these countries. He announced a new, I think, $2 million program that would help the countries tackle climate change and disasters and fisheries and agriculture, a number of areas. Now, $2 million is not a lot of money, but nonetheless, it's a demonstration of China's determination to help be responsive to the needs of the Pacific Island countries. So really, if the US wants to compete, we have to be able to offer something. We can't just counter with rhetoric. We really have to be able to offer something and really, as you said, withdrawing our aid presence really does take away a major tool that we use to demonstrate our friendship and our concern for the countries. There's — you may be familiar with Satyendra Prasad, who was a former Fijian ambassador to the United States, and he penned a very thoughtful, I thought, piece in the Fiji Times back in January. Now this was after the election, but before the inauguration, in which he talked about, you know, what might lie ahead for the Pacific Island countries and US relations under the new administration. And one of the observations he made is that one of the advantages that China has is that it's been consistent in its messaging, and it's taken a long-term approach, whereas, you know, with the United States, currently, we're seeing these big, you know, vacillations in terms of, you know, how we're engaging and what we're willing to do, and, you know, reversal of previous commitments. And he made the observation that the Pacific Island countries really detest this so, as he termed, stop-start relationships. And he also made the observation that, you know, for the world's most climate-stressed vulnerable region, the most powerful strategic weapon, really, that the US has are our assistance programs that help the countries promote their development. So, I think that's a very legitimate concern, and it's something that I hope that the new administration is beginning to grapple with. And my sincere hope is that, and I want to say too that both the previous Trump administration and the Biden administration recognised the importance of the region, and that they took steps to, you know, increase our boost our engagement. And really, traditionally, there has been bipartisan support in the United States for the relationship with the Pacific Island countries. When I came back from the region and I retired from the State Department, I was invited to testify at a hearing that the House Subcommittee on Asia Pacific hosted on the strategic importance of the Pacific Island region. And I can tell you from that discussion that the Democratic and Republican members of Congress were, you know, very much of like mind in terms of their strong interest in seeking ways we can increase our engagement and shore up those relationships. So, my hope is that as they, you know, look at the budget, you know, both Congress and the administration will come to the realisation that really maintaining these programs in some form is vital. And we're really talking again like the Millennium Challenge Corporation writ large, the US is not a major funder of development in the Pacific, but it's still an important one, and it's again a case where a little bit of money can have a really big impact. So, cutting these programs is not going to balance the US budget, but maintaining them will really be enormously beneficial to our relations, which means ultimately to the US security and our broader interests.
Gordon Peake: That's right. And I mean, I think you're right to talk about that bipartisan consensus that there was on increased US attention to the Pacific when I lived in Washington, DC, and you could see that it spanned across party lines, but also even across ideological lines as well. So, the Heritage Foundation, which will be familiar to most of our listeners for Project 2025, put out a, I think, a really thoughtful, well-considered, well-researched report called the Pacific Pivot, and it was making the argument that the United States should not do less but that should do more in the Pacific Islands. It's obviously framed very much through a China lens, but it's really striking that even on the political right when it came to foreign policy about the Pacific Islands, there was the same consensus as there would have been in the centre or on the centre-left about the Pacific Islands. But yet the administration appears to have gone in a different way. And it's also really striking, Judith, that this is coming at a very at a kind of inflection point for the region, which is this year, 10 Pacific Island countries will be making record-high debt repayments to China based on loans that they accepted in the 2010s. We've all accepted loans in our time. We've all thought I'm never going to have to pay them back. Well, like 2025 is the year in which these Pacific Island countries are going to have to do it. And you mentioned also that how China is capitalising on this in different ways. I mean, one of the other programs that was cut was Radio Free Asia, a radio program that went all across the Pacific, and that void is being filled by China. The Washington Post reported on this. We'll put the details in the show notes. It's a real inflection point, I think, at this time.
Judith Cefkin: No, I think that's exactly right, though it's very true.
Gordon Peake: You mentioned about how the US gives comparatively little aid in the Pacific. But there are three countries, the Federated States of Micronesia, Palau and the Republic of the Marshall Islands, which the US is far and away the biggest donor. These are the states that are under compacts of free association with the United States, places that feel like kind of rusted parts of the American empire in lots of ways. Many Marshallese and Micronesians and Palauans make their home in the United States and serve with distinction in the United States military. Let's sort of pivot the conversation from the Pacific writ large to those three compact states. And I wonder if you can begin by giving our listeners a flavour about what these compacts are. They are very unique relationships that the United States has with these three countries. We sort of know of them in Australia, but we don't know them in the degree of granular detail that US policy makers would. So can you begin just by talking about what the compacts of free association are and then let's talk about how this attitude towards the near abroad is impacting upon these compact states.
Judith Cefkin: Yes, they are a very special and a very unique relationship. And you know, in the post-World War Two period, these countries became trust territories of the United States. But they subsequently became independent sovereign countries, but with a special relationship to the United States. So, they're obviously independent in their governance, they're independent in their international relations. But the US does have a special commitment to them to provide funding in exchange. We also have a special defence relationship with these countries. So, whereas you know they, we sort of have first right of refusal. Other countries cannot enter into defence-type relationships with these countries without US authorisation. So, you know, in exchange for, you know, these arrangements, we do commit, you know, a fair bit of money to help support the development of these countries. But it's probably important for your listeners to understand that most of this funding is not assistance, it's not international assistance. It's really funding that comes through other agencies of the US government, and actually the agency of the US government which, you know, oversees writ large, the sort of the help, you know, manage our compacts, is the Department of Interior, our Office of Insular Affairs, and then they also get support through other agencies of the US government, including our Health and Human Services and a fair bit of, you know, health assistance. They have certain rights and privileges with regard to those programs. Our Federal Emergency Management Assistance, I think our Department of Education has programs there. So, they're independent countries. We have embassies, US embassies in these countries that manage our diplomatic relationship with the countries, because they are independent countries and have their independent foreign policies, but at the same time, they have certain — they're beneficiaries of a lot of US domestic programming and the countries, the people of these countries, the citizens of these countries, have right of visa-free travel to the United States. They can come to the US. They can work here. They're not considered citizens. They don't have the privileges of voting or other rights of citizens, but they do have the right to come to the United States and to work here. And there are communities from these countries in several parts of the United States, concentrations, of course, Hawaii, but there's a fairly large community, for example, of Marshallese living in Arkansas. So, you know, there is that connection, that's right.
Gordon Peake: And I mean, I think the Marshallese in Arkansas are great, are a great example. I mean, I think there's more Marshallese in the state of Arkansas than there are in the Republic of the Marshall Islands. So, it sort of tells you a lot about the migration flows and that there is — and something that is of interest in Australia, given that Australia is sort of developing these sorts of labour migration schemes with elsewhere in the Pacific. And you're right to say the focus of attention is on those three compact states. Our colleague here at the Development Policy Centre, Terence Wood, did calculations. He's a good number cruncher, and he found that 80% of the aid that was given to different parts of the Pacific between 2019 and 2023, was given to the three compact states. So, something that's of real attention, and as you said, something that's implemented by a whole slew of different government agencies. How much, Judith, is this compact funding on the line? How much is implementation wavering on the line with the sort of drift towards focusing on the American homeland rather than on its near abroad?
Judith Cefkin: Yeah, I don't think — and again, I'm not necessarily privy to, you know, the latest thinking or discussions. But my understanding is that the funding, per se, isn't so much on the line, except for some of these programs, projects that were being handled through USAID. But in terms of the broader funding, I think that's, you know, that's still there. I think the bigger challenge, though, is that there's been, as you probably know, a lot of cutbacks, both to personnel in some of the agencies that manage our agencies, such as HHS or DOE or, you know, certainly there's been talks about, you know, drastic cutbacks of the Federal Emergency Management Administration. So, the question is maybe about do we have the personnel we need to implement the compact programs and, you know, just, I guess, budget cutbacks in general to these agencies. Again, I don't think it's so much threatening the specific compact funding, but it could be threatening the implementation of this funding.
Gordon Peake: Yeah, just for our listeners, I'm going to try and get back to my acronym thing. HHS, Health and Human Services, DOE, Department of Education. But what we've — a lot of the sort of the subtext of this conversation, Judith, has been about cuts, cuts to the State Department, the abolition of USAID, cuts to this sort of slew of other programs and institutions and agencies of the US government. But yet, there's one part of the US government that is not cutting, it is increasing, and that is the Department of Defense. And you can see that in the Pacific Islands also. I think Secretary Pete Hegseth's first trip beyond the continental United States was to the Pacific Islands. He went to Guam, a US territory in the Pacific, and he announced upgrades to a runway in Yap in the Federated States of Micronesia. A lot of these runways were actually created during the Second World War. But there's a huge increase in funding and attention to defence projects in the Pacific, so close to a billion kina, I think actually, over a billion kina has been allocated for a fuel bunkering project in Papua New Guinea by the Department of Defense. That far exceeds the amount of money that was being allocated in aid. We talked about Kiribati before, about places like Canton Island, which has an airstrip, a place of great strategic significance. And across the Pacific, you see this US focus on airstrips, some of which the US created way back when. But it does strike me that there's this militarisation, and this very kind of militaristic accent to American foreign policy as it comes to the Pacific.
Judith Cefkin: Yeah, I do think that, you know, the military investment probably is important from a strategic perspective. And I think the military partnerships we have with the countries in the Pacific Island region are important, both to us and to these countries. You know, as you know, there are only three countries in the Pacific Island region, independent countries that actually have militaries, and those are Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Tonga. But nonetheless, even with the countries that don't have militaries, we have security cooperation with their security forces, which in most cases are their police forces. And certainly, in my experience, serving in the Pacific and living in Fiji, where we did have a fairly robust military-to-military cooperative relationship. And the same with Tonga. You know, a lot of our military cooperation focused on developing capacity in the area of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. Because, of course, the military often is the first responder, and in those situations where there are serious disasters, cyclones, tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanoes. So, I think that's all valuable. I think another area, another program that's very valuable is a program that's actually managed by the US Coast Guard, with support from the US Navy, which is the ship-rider program where our vessels can be used as platforms when we're visiting these countries. It can be used as platforms for the maritime enforcement officials in these countries that can board our ships and help enforce their maritime — you know, surveil their maritime spaces and enforce their maritime law in their exclusive economic zones. And as I'm sure you know, of course, the region is extremely rich in terms of tuna. I think half the world's tuna is harvested in the region, and these countries depend heavily on their on the fisheries for their livelihoods and for revenue. And they have — it's very difficult because they don't have a lot of assets. So, it's very difficult for them to patrol these huge expanses of water, maritime territory that they have. So, we help them with that. And I think it's not just that they are suffering from a lot of what we call IUU — illegal, unregulated, unreported fishing, where they — I think I've seen the figure that they can lose up to $23 million worth of revenue from fish, you know, fishing boats that are basically stealing their fish, I guess, to put it more simply. So, we help them with that. But there's other things happening in the maritime spaces of the Pacific too, that I think are increasingly coming into focus as a problem, including drug trafficking and other forms of, you know, illicit activity in their spaces. So again, I think you know US military partnerships with the Pacific, you know, along with Australia and other partners are helping them in that area. But, but, and here's the but is that it's extremely important, as you alluded to, that our engagement not be solely tied to our military cooperation. It's really important that that be balanced with what's often referred to as our soft power engagement. And this includes our development assistance programs. This includes our people-to-people exchanges, our educational exchanges, our cultural exchanges and other forms of you know, you know, working with the people in these countries to, as you know, I said initially, to help them address their priorities and their needs, and really the United States, I think you know that traditionally has been a big advantage that the US has had globally, in our engagement, is that, you know, we've really been able to demonstrate, you know, our concern for people around the world, and that we want to help, in a sense, lift all boats. We want to be the country that helps lift all boats and help tackle, help them tackle their challenges, and that by doing so, we are also enhancing our own security, because countries that are stable, are helping to lift themselves economically, are helping to stabilise themselves politically, to you know, have strong governance and to help, you know, extend greater freedom to their people. Are going to be countries that are partners. And I think when you look at the history of our development work around the world, it's notable that, in fact, some of our largest trading partners currently were once recipients of US aid, and now they themselves are major donors in the aid in the world of aid globally.
Gordon Peake: Yeah, something that you said, I think is worth sort of, you know, putting a button on which is the interest in this administration on hard power, on kind of military power, and the kind of relative lack of interest in soft power, in the all the sort of initiatives that previously, I mean, had a clear benefit in the countries themselves, but also made the United States an alluring place, or a place that people wanted to look to. It seems less interested in that. I want to just conclude with a couple of questions, one of which is about tuna. You mentioned tuna and the tuna treaty, which is something that United States signed with Pacific Island nations, which enables US fisheries to operate in Pacific waters, in return for which Pacific Island nations get a dividend or get a payment from that. But it's held up. It's held up in Congress, and it's something I think that we in Australia don't really appreciate so much, which is the role of Congress in holding the purse in the United States system, and in thus being able to make decisions and allocations based on that. I mean, you and I are speaking to each other in early July, when the news is full of the big, beautiful bill and whether it's going to pass through the Senate and back through the House of Representatives, but Australia is a Westminster democracy, when the Prime Minister says something, the Prime Minister tends to get it through the numbers through that. But yet, Congress is a different beast. And when it comes to the Pacific, there's a rhetoric certainly on the part of Congress that, yes, you know, these are great Pacific allies, et cetera, et cetera. But when it comes to prioritising matters, the tuna treaty being one of them, the compacts of free association refunding in 2024 which really went down to the wire before Congress passed it, there seems to be a kind of lack of interest in the issue. Is it just because Congress is too busy on other things? Or is there a, does this bespeak, a kind of, you know, a rhetorical interest, but not a pocketbook interest when it comes to the Pacific Islands in the halls of the United States Congress?
Judith Cefkin: Yes, and you're absolutely right. Of course, we have a different system of government. You have a parliamentary system. So, your majority in Congress is what produces your leadership. Our system is different, although currently the party that holds the White House, the Republican Party, also enjoys a majority in both houses of Congress. We'll see you know if that changes at all after the next congressional elections. But back to your question about the tuna treaty. So, it's a really very valuable form of engagement, again, between the United States and the countries in the Pacific Island region, because it helps sustain our tuna fishing industry, our purse seine tuna fishers, and it helps provide tuna fish, which Americans love. I mean, you know, inevitably, a tuna fish sandwich is what many of us have for lunch, and it's also a very important source of revenue for the countries in the Pacific Island region. And what it does is it allows our fisheries to fish in the waters of these countries. Our fisheries pay license fees for access to the waters based on the number of days that they're actually proposing to fish, so the countries get that revenue from the industry. And now the treaty itself goes back to, I believe it's 1987, so it's been in existence for, you know, decades. More recently, there was some dissatisfaction among some of the Pacific Island countries over the way the treaty was operating, and there were some threats by some countries to pull out of the treaty. And that resulted in a new negotiation that led to several amendments to the treaty, and in fact, that was finalised while I was in the Pacific in 2016 and in fact, I had the privilege of signing the amended agreement, being the representative from the United States who signed that agreement. So, what's pending before Congress now is just to codify into US law the amended treaty. We are operating under the terms of the amended treaty, but it hasn't yet been fully codified by Congress. And most recently, the House of Representatives did pass legislation. This happened very recently, in May of this year, to do that, but it still is pending in the Senate. Now separate from that, and it's, I think, easy to confuse the two things. The US has pledged some what we call economic support funds, funding to the Pacific Island countries. And it's divided up between the Forum Fisheries Agency, which oversees, of course, the fisheries policy in the region, as well as the individual countries get some of the funding to help them, you know, support sustainable fisheries in their waters. And there was an agreement by the last administration to boost the funding — boost this funding fairly substantially, tripled the funding, so from, as opposed to $20 million a year to $60 million a year. But that money has yet to be allocated. And in fact, again, going back to the request that the administration has sent up to Congress for its budget, is actually proposing to eliminate the category of funding that was being used to fund this commitment, this economic support fund commitment. Now that doesn't necessarily mean that the funding won't come from another category. It could come from another category of funding, but that is still very much an open question. Is, will the current administration honour the commitment made by the previous administration for this funding? And if so, will this money be allocated by Congress, and then, I mean appropriated by Congress and then allocated by the administration? I hope that answers your question without being too confusing.
Gordon Peake: It answers the question, and it clarifies the question that I asked you. So, I'm doubly grateful to you for that. How are former colleagues of yours faring in this administration? A diplomat must represent the interests of the government in power, and you have to sublimate your own personal opinion from that of the government in power. It's why, if I look at a career that I would be terrible at, it would be being a diplomat, because I find it very hard not to say what's in my mind at the time. If you felt comfortable about it, it would be great to get your sense about how colleagues are going. And if you don't feel comfortable about it, just say no.
Judith Cefkin: I'm happy to answer the question. I'll start by saying that I'm not in touch with too many people who are still working at the State Department since I've been retired now for a number of years. But certainly, you know, I keep in touch through the professional association, American Foreign Service Association, which is the union for the Foreign Service and the representative for the Foreign Service with the management of State Department. And I'm a member as a retiree; we remain members of that organisation. So, I can tell you that it's been challenging. Certainly, the way US Agency for International Development was dismantled has been deeply traumatising. I mean, these are people that are patriotic Americans, loyal, serving in often very challenging places and conditions and working to advance US interests, so they did not deserve the way they were summarily dismissed. And you know, the chaos that has sort of been accompanied with that, and I think watching that for people at the State Department has been difficult, and there is now also talk about some reductions in force at the State Department, which is, you know, within obviously, the rights, the power of the administration to undertake. But there have been some last-minute changes to the way in which this reduction of force is being proposed that is not in accordance with what had been previously negotiated with our employee, our professional association. So that's also creating a lot of angst, and I've noticed a lot of retirements. Just watching social media, I've noticed a lot of retirements by senior Foreign Service officers, and I understand why they're making that decision. But it's also regrettable that the State Department is losing a lot of expertise, a bit of a brain drain. So, you know, it's a challenging time, but you know, as you say, I mean as career staff, we serve under the policy direction of the elected president, democratically elected president, and the senior officials he chooses to head his policy in the different agencies. Personally, as a Foreign Service officer, I worked under the leadership of four Republican and three Democratic presidents. So, you know, we understand that is the role of, you know, working for your government, serving your government, but at the same time, Foreign Service officers have real expertise. They want the government to succeed, so it really behoves the political leadership to listen to the advice of the professionals and to, you know, weigh those opinions in the decisions they're making and not being at the State Department, I can't tell you what that dialogue — to what extent that is or isn't happening, but I hope it is happening. I hope that they're trusting the career staff, and that they're, you know, inviting their input and listening to them. And I think that, you know, Secretary Rubio has talked about three fundamental questions that American diplomats should be asking as they're, you know, carrying out their work, and that is whether what they're doing is making the US safer, more secure and more prosperous. And I think those are the right questions, but I will say that in my diplomatic experience, advancing US interest was always at the core of everything I and my colleagues did. So, I don't really think the question is whether, previously, Foreign Service officers were not pursuing these goals. I think they were, but it's a question of how you pursue those goals. And I think that's really where the debate lies. And those are debates you can have. Those are discussions you can have. But I think that you know, certainly in my experience, that continuing to be a player in the development assistance and humanitarian assistance, in engagement across these various sectors is really what does make the US safer, more secure and more prosperous. So, I hope that the current administration will come to an understanding that that should be a critical part of our diplomacy going forward.
Gordon Peake: Well, even though you've left the diplomatic service, I don't think you've lost any of your diplomatic skills. That was a really nice way of answering that question. Judith, it's wonderful to catch up with you again, and before we sign off, I want to just acknowledge our mutual friend, a woman called Camilla Pohle who was where I worked at the United States Institute of Peace, who's a wonderful analyst of the Pacific Islands, and she helped do some background research for us, so that we were able to have this conversation. So, thank you Camilla, and thank you Judith.
Judith Cefkin: Maybe it's worth noting Gordon that I know we're recording this podcast today. It's here in US time where I am. It's June 30, 2025, and July 1, where you are in Australia. But when this program airs there could be quite a bit that's changed in terms of action that Congress has taken regarding some of the budget requests that we reference in this program, so we'll see how it holds up. Thank you. Lovely to see you again.