The United States insists it is not steamrolling and divvying up Pacific security with Australia but is working with partners to see where it best fits.
Pacific nations ticked off a policing co-operation agreement spearheaded by Australia during the Pacific Islands Forum leaders’ meeting in Tonga in late August.
But it was overshadowed by a hot mic moment when U.S deputy secretary of state Kurt Campbell was caught on video telling Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese that Washington had “given (Australia) the lane” and pulled back on a similar initiative.
“There was not a discussion about how we might divvy up policing in the region,” U.S assistant secretary Todd Robinson told a small contingent of reporters in Canberra.
It followed concerns from analysts that the “lane” comment by Campbell – the Biden administration’s top Pacific expert – highlighted the view that larger partners are only focused on outmanoeuvring China rather than Pacific priorities.
The United States had instead been discussing “where we can fit in, what we can do, what we have to offer”, Robinson said.
This may include initiatives such as training maritime and police forces, bolstering legal and justice systems to better prosecute criminals or jointly tackling the illicit drug trade, Robinson said.
He noted “the large, important role that Australia and New Zealand have in the region” following analysts’ comments that America shelving any similar policing initiative was recognition the space was best left to the trans-Tasman partners.
The assistant secretary will travel to Tonga within days to launch the first U.S-Pacific police chiefs meeting.
Stopping international drug smuggling is high on the agenda with organised syndicates from South America, Asia and Europe increasingly flooding the Pacific with narcotics rather than just using it as a waypoint to Australia.
“No one has sufficient resources for any of this, except the bad guys,” Robinson said, pointing to the need for collaboration.
While Canberra and Washington were rekindling collaboration with China, “there’s a long way to go before we feel like we’re in a space where we can talk about clear, progressive, open law enforcement co-operation”, Robinson said.
“We’re still sort of feeling each other out,” he said.
Australia, New Zealand and America deporting thousands of criminals to Pacific island nations with less adept law enforcement has created friction, with one report finding trans-Tasman criminal groups were expanding into the region.
“We’re trying to give these countries the tools they need to be able to address these issues,” he said when asked about the deportation policies.
