Congress must pass measure extending vital Central Pacific agreements

As Congress scrambles to meet the early March government funding deadlines, the bipartisan Compact of Free Association Amendments Act must be part of any FY 2024 appropriations package. This critical legislation would fund the agreements between the United States and the Freely Associated States (FAS) — Palau, the Marshall Islands, and Micronesia — for another 20 years. 

If we don’t fund this agreement, which provides economic assistance in exchange for military access and denial rights, these states have warned they may soon be forced to turn to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for economic support and political patronage. This would deliver a catastrophe of cataclysmic proportions to our ability to prevent CCP domination of the Indo-Pacific and defend our homeland. 

Why? These agreements facilitate United States military access and basing rights throughout these islands — and the ability to prevent any other foreign militaries, to include China’s, from operating there. The FAS occupy a critical strategic location in the Central Pacific and are set to play a key role in any future U.S. military operations in the region, including through a forthcoming early warning radar in Palau and distributed airfields that will help facilitate the Air Force’s Agile Combat Employment concept. Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands even hosts a critical ballistic missile defense test site.

The FAS’s strategic position in the Central Pacific makes them essential to any contingency response involving Taiwan, as well as the defense of Hawaii and Guam. As the FAS leaders pointed out in a recent letter to the Senate, these agreements “effectively expand the United States for defense purposes to cover an expanse of the Pacific larger than the 48 contiguous United States, stretching from west of Hawaii to the Philippines and Indonesia.”

The strategic military value of these islands is incontrovertible. Imperial Japan controlled them during World War II and it cost the United States dearly in blood and treasure, forcing us to fight fierce battles across the Pacific through many of these enemy-held islands, to what we now call the Second Island Chain, and onwards toward the Japanese home islands. 

The same geography that made these islands so attractive to Imperial Japan makes it equally attractive to the CCP today, which is actively seeking to exploit these nations economically. The lack of renewed compacts of free association (COFA) funding has given the CCP a crucial opening, as the FAS leaders warned us in their letter to Washington. 

Over the past decade, the CCP has made a concerted effort to expand its influence into the FAS, doubling down on diplomatic engagement, trade and investment, and humanitarian assistance. Already, CCP enticements have included a reported offer of $100 million in infrastructure funding to Micronesia. Meanwhile in Palau, pro-American President Surangel Whipps Jr. has warned that every day COFA funding is not approved plays into the hands of the CCP and “leaders here (some of whom have done ‘business’ with the PRC) who want to accept its seemingly attractive economic offers — at the cost of shifting alliances, beginning with sacrificing Taiwan.” Moreover, according to President Whipps, the “PRC has already offered to ‘fill every hotel room’ in our tourism-based private sector — ‘and more if more are built’ — as well as pay $20 million a year for two acres for a ‘call center.’

This malign influence is not limited to economics. Chinese survey ships have been operating nearby undersea cables in Palau and Micronesia, and in Palau, the CCP managed to persuade pro-Beijing legislators to pass a resolution denouncing the proposed U.S. military radar system. 

Should the CCP succeed in its attempts to displace us in the Central Pacific, it would put Chinese military forces well past the Second Island Chain, dramatically closer to American territory, seriously complicating our national defenses as well as our ability to defend Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines and other Pacific partners. 

Fortunately, there’s an easy way to prevent this future: Pass the Compact of Free Association Amendments Act. Palau, the Marshall Islands, and Micronesia want to be our allies. They have already agreed to extend these agreements for 20 years. Congress just needs to follow through. Amidst other debates over government funding, support for allies, and securing the border, COFA funding stands out as a non-negotiable national imperative. 

Congress owes it to the American service members who fought and died taking the Central Pacific—as well as those who may fight on its seas and in its air in the future—to overcome the gridlock and secure its national interests in the Pacific.

Mike Gallagher represents the 8th District of Wisconsin and is chairman of the Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party.