The Australian reports that China is now outstripping the US in providing assistance to Pacific nations, as Anthony Albanese warns that the Trump administration’s decision to abandon aid programs in the Pacific and withdraw from the Paris climate agreement presents Australia with a new “strategic reality” in the region.
President Donald Trump’s more-than 80 per cent cut to the US Agency for International Development programs has been a sledgehammer blow to aid-dependent Pacific nations, leaving a vacuum the Australian government fears will increasingly be filled by China as Beijing ramps up its “soft power” push into the region.
The article quotes USSC director of foreign policy and defence Peter Dean.