Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific in a New U.S. Administration

Commentary by Charles EdelandKathryn Paik

Published September 26, 2024

This commentary is part of a report from the CSIS Geopolitics and Foreign Policy Department entitled The Global Impact of the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election. The report features a set of essays assessing the meaning of the election for Europe, Russia, Eurasia, the Indo-Pacific, the Americas, Africa, and the Middle East.

Over the past decade, the Indo-Pacific region has emerged as the primary area of strategic focus for Washington. This perception is bipartisan and shared between the U.S. executive and congressional branches. It is also a focus that will likely continue for the next presidential administration, with particular emphasis on the U.S.-Australia alliance and the strategically significant Pacific Islands region.

As the United States works to "build collective capacity for a new age" and makes strengthening critical alliances a cornerstone of its strategy, the U.S.-Australia relationship has been brought even more sharply into focus. At the same time, the Pacific Islands region, which proved its strategic significance in World War II, has again emerged as a critical strategic battleground as China extends its influence across the Pacific.

Three relatively recent developments stand out in the region: the full embrace of the U.S.-Australia alliance in all facets of engagement across the Indo-Pacific and the world, the growing partnership with an increasingly forward-leaning New Zealand, and the accelerated engagement with Pacific Islands partners and regional institutions. All three must continue, though the way they move forward will take different forms under different U.S. administrations.

What the Region Will Emphasize in the First 100 Days

A Harris administration's Indo-Pacific approach would likely remain consistent with President Biden's. As vice president, Harris is well aware of the importance of a robust Indo-Pacific foreign policy to counter China and, like Biden, has cast U.S. foreign policy as engaged in an "enduring struggle between democracy and tyranny." The vice president took part in many facets of the administration's engagement, such as addressing the 2022 Pacific Islands Forum Leaders' Meeting; traveling several times to the Indo-Pacific, including to Thailand in 2022 for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC); and building out her relationship with Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Under Harris, the United States would be extremely unlikely to seek accommodation with Moscow or Beijing and instead would work to continue the Biden administration's strategies of empowering close U.S. allies, building collective defense and industrial capacity, and strengthening Washington's participation in regional forums and institutions.

The region would largely welcome this continuity, especially in Australia, where U.S.-Australia relations have reached historic heights in recent years, with AUKUS-the trilateral security partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States-representing perhaps the most significant security arrangement of the past several decades. Yet with much still to be done, Australia will look for early assurance from a Harris presidency that U.S. continuity of effort, focus, funding, and collaboration on AUKUS and other force posture initiatives, such as resilient critical mineral supply chains and defense industrial cooperation, will remain top priorities.

New Zealand's new government under Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has been vocal in its desire to align more closely with traditional partners, including doubling down on the Five Eyes alliance (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States) and taking a leading role at the 2024 NATO Indo-Pacific Four (IP4) summit. Early in a Harris administration, New Zealand would seek to build off recent momentum in its relationship with the United States-including operationalizing the countries' August 2024 technology dialogue-and maximize opportunities to expand and diversify its economy.

The Pacific also would be keen to encourage a Harris administration to continue the major ramp-up seen under the Biden administration. Pacific nations would look for the United States to move beyond this first phase of engagement-defined by high-level visits, summits, and noteworthy promises-to a second phase of follow-through.

A Trump administration would likely prioritize great power competition with China as a top national security concern. While this prioritization would, by default, maintain focus on the Indo-Pacific region, it could change the shape of U.S. engagement with Australia, New Zealand, and Pacific Islands countries.

Australia's top priority will be to demonstrate the critical nature of the U.S.-Australian relationship, explain its strategy of stabilization with China to the White House, emphasize Australian defense spending commitments and progress on the build-out of defense infrastructure and supporting manpower, and provide compelling articulations-perhaps in more transactional terms-for a Trump administration to continue moving forward on AUKUS.

The Luxon government's rhetoric thus far hits the mark for closer alignment with the United States, but New Zealand's challenge will be to demonstrate that it is willing to commit funding and real action that match its words if it hopes to maintain engagement with a more transactionally focused Trump administration.

At stake for the Pacific in a Trump administration is continuing productive engagement with a U.S. government that would likely remove climate change from its lexicon. Pacific officials would face the daunting but possible challenge of reframing U.S.-Pacific relations in two major ways. First, they would need to frame the relationship more explicitly in terms of U.S. national security. As much as Pacific leaders would be loath to be caught in the middle of U.S.-China competition, their strategic location would also give them leverage with a more myopically China-focused U.S. government. Second, the region would do well to focus on the critical infrastructure component of combating climate change, an existential threat to many islands in the Pacific, such as by ensuring that the United States and its allies, not China, build out communications networks as well as ports and airfields.

Policy Recommendations

The challenge to any U.S. administration is maintaining staying power and demonstrating relevance in a rapidly evolving environment where China will continue a full-court press to reshape the region to its benefit. This task will require several areas of focus:

• Demonstrate real success on AUKUS and other force posture and capability development initiatives. This focus would include launching tangible AUKUS Pillar Two projects and dedicated funding streams and enabling more coproduction of defense matériel through refinement of U.S. export controls.
• Deepen U.S.-Australian partnership on critical minerals and supply chain security both bilaterally and as part of ongoing Quad efforts. Both nations should capitalize on the vast expertise and interest that exist across the private sector, including supporting Track 2 endeavors to further bilateral and multilateral collaboration on critical minerals and supply chain challenges.
• Organize an offsetting economic coercion task force that draws on lessons learned from Australia and other nations. This task force would seek to drive efforts to diversify and protect economies and promote multilateral efforts to offset economic coercion.
• Launch a bilateral military coordination structure of U.S. forces in Australia. A U.S. Forces Australia mechanism would be commensurate with the depth and breadth of this growing alliance.
• Formulate a concrete agenda with New Zealand that includes cooperation on technology and space. New Zealand is rapidly positioning itself as a respected international voice willing to push back on authoritarian actors. Its partnership will be critical as the United States looks to gain influence in the region.
• Launch a trilateral U.S.-New Zealand-Australia foreign ministerial meeting. The growing alignment between these three countries in the face of geostrategic challenges would benefit from a formal high-level dialogue.
• Demonstrate follow-through on promises to the Pacific, especially those that institutionalize U.S. influence and presence. This focus includes actions such as opening new embassies, deploying an appropriate diplomatic footprint, and facilitating much-needed infrastructure financing across the islands, among other efforts.

Charles Edel is a senior adviser and the inaugural Australia Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. Kathryn Paik is a senior fellow with the CSIS Australia Chair.

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