Leaders of strategic U.S.-allied Pacific island nations have become increasingly anxious about the U.S. congressional budget impasse that has delayed approval of vital new funding packages and warned that China is actively seeking to shift their allegiances, including over Taiwan.
The Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and Palau agreed to new 20-year funding programs with the United States last year under which Washington provides economic assistance, while gaining exclusive military access to strategic swaths of the Pacific that China covets.
But despite bipartisan support for the new programs, known as Compacts of Free Association, or COFAs, the funding has yet to be approved by Congress months later, even though the additional amount currently needed is a relatively small $2.3 billion.