At this year’s Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) Leaders’ Meeting, the story that seemed to capture headlines was the decision by this year’s host, Solomon Islands, to disinvite all external partners from attendance. The reporting around this decision reflected concerns of great power competition and influence in the Pacific Islands’ premier regional forum.
However, this year’s Leaders’ Meeting was also a milestone for Guam, one of two U.S. territories that was granted associate membership status last year. (The other was American Samoa, which was did not attend this year’s meeting.)
Despite some hypothesizing that including Guam and American Samoa as associate members could result in proxy messaging and information sharing opportunities for the United States, this appears to have not been the case. Guam Lieutenant Governor Josh Tenorio, who represented the territory at the Leaders’ Meeting, noted that although his office did engage with the U.S. Department of State before the PIF, those engagements “didn’t have anything to do with shaping or molding or inquiring about what statements I was going to make.”
Tenorio continued: “The State Department has their own bilateral relationships with most of the members of the PIF…As I understood it, the under secretary of state had bilateral meetings with many of the PIF leaders [after the forum].”
At the meeting, Guam positioned itself as a potential regional connectivity hub in various sectors, including in air and sea service and telecommunications. Although Solomon Islands’ decision to exclude all external partners from this year’s PIF Leadership may reflect intra-regional great power tensions, Guam’s participation as an associate member for the first time presents different opportunities for Pacific Islands integration.
Guam and the PIF
Guam has held observer status in the PIF since 2011. The upgrade to associate member allows the U.S. territory to attend and speak at leader, official, and ministerial-level meetings. Guam had previously petitioned for PIF membership in 2022, receiving a tepid response from PIF leadership. However, by 2024, Governor Leon Guerrero and Lieutenant Governor Tenorio successfully made their case for a membership upgrade to the U.S. Department of State.
Then-U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken transmitted a letter to the PIF that stated the United States’ support for Guam’s membership “in light of Guam’s interest in increasing its participation in the PIF and the common challenges and interests Guam shares with the PIF member states.” At the same time, the letter also noted an “understanding that the status of associate membership in the PIF does not require Guam to take on or exercise any rights or responsibilities inconsistent with its status as a U.S. territory, including under international law.”
In other words, Guam and American Samoa have a delicate balancing act in presenting their own interests in the PIF without contradicting U.S. policy. That said, Guam’s upgraded designation in the PIF despite its political status is not without precedent; in 2016, French Polynesia and New Caledonia, the latter of which is also a United Nations-designated Non-Self Governing Territory, became full members of the PIF.
Guam’s Regional Role
Guam’s role in the Indo-Pacific region often revolves around its strategic location and role as a host to several U.S. military bases. Guam was thus highlighted in the Pacific Deterrence Initiative (PDI), the Pentagon’s ongoing plan since 2021 to make investments that “enhance the United States deterrence and defense posture in the Indo-Pacific region, assure allies and partners, and increase capability and readiness in the Indo-Pacific region.” The PDI’s total appropriation in fiscal year 2021 was $2.234 billion; the FY2026 PDI budget request sits at $10 billion.
At the recent Guam Defense Forum on September 17 and 18, INDOPACOM Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo remarked that planned missile defense systems in Guam would be integral to “America’s Pacific Century.”
Additional lines of effort related to U.S. strategic priorities in the Pacific Islands provide opportunities for different kinds of regional integration. At the PIF Leaders’ Meeting, Tenorio touted Guam’s potential as a regional connectivity hub. In a press release from the Office of the Governor, he stated that “Guam’s expanding transportation and communications infrastructure supports a case for our island to serve as the premier hub for commercial enterprise for the greater Pacific.” He separately referenced Google’s Central Pacific Connect Initiative, which aims to connect Guam to Fiji and French Polynesia via undersea cables. The Central Pacific Connect Initiative is part of the Central Pacific Cable Project, a U.S. plan to provide digital infrastructure across 12 Pacific Island countries and territories.
Besides telecommunications, addressing sea level rise is another issue that plagues the Pacific Islands generally. Many people in the region could increasingly become climate refugees. However, some islands will be affected more than others. Of particular concern are Pacific Island countries that largely consist of low-lying atolls rather than volcanic landmasses. Guam, Tenorio noted, is “likely going to be the destination for migrants that have no choice but to leave their islands, especially from the Freely Associated States.”
The Compacts of Free Association between the United States and three Pacific Island countries – the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, and Palau, which have a combined population of approximately 200,000 – allow citizens from those countries to settle in U.S. states and territories without visas. Guam has hosted refugees before during Operation New Life, where over 100,000 Vietnamese refugees temporarily took up shelter on the island before resettlement in the continental United States. However, unlike with Operation New Life, where the destructive effects of the Vietnam War were primarily confined to mainland Southeast Asia, sea level rise will have dire physical consequences on land availability in both sources and destinations of climate migration.
Strategic Context in the Pacific
Guam’s participation in this year’s PIF cannot be separated from the broader strategic context facing the Pacific Islands region. The United States, China, and a bevy of other powers are vying for influence in the region due to many islands’ location along shipping lanes between the Indo-Pacific and the Americas. Pacific Island states have ongoing opportunities to leverage this contest in the form of partnerships for urgent development goals.
However, great power competition can also lead to intra-regional rifts. In 2022, China and Solomon Islands signed a controversial security agreement, the final terms of which are still opaque. A leaked draft agreement of the China-Solomon Islands deal that circulated at the time allowed the prime minister to request the presence of Chinese police and military forces for “maintaining the social order,” and for other purposes. The draft text also suggested security facility access for China. Australia, which had previously deployed forces to Solomon Islands to quell unrest through the RAMSI initiative, condemned this agreement and “its potential to undermine stability in [its] region.”
Even more recently, Australia and Papua New Guinea failed to secure an expected joint defense pact and instead signed a joint communique intended as a placeholder for the two countries to negotiate the terms of their potential treaty. In response, a spokesperson from the Chinese Embassy in PNG appeared to issue a warning: “Such a treaty should not be exclusive in nature, nor should it restrict or prevent a sovereign country from cooperating with a third party…”
With great power pressure looming large, Solomon Islands decided to block all external dialogue partners from attending this year’s PIF Leaders’ Meeting. Honiara framed it as a “sovereign” decision so the PIF could overhaul the processes through which it engages with outside nations. However, many were quick to point out Solomon Islands’ unique position as a Pacific country that is particularly close with Beijing.
Given Solomon Islands’ ties with China, some have said that this was Honaira’s blanket ban was its least controversial option in terms of reconciling its responsibilities as this year’s host with its own bilateral relations with China. This year’s meeting could have devolved into veiled talks about the level of influence great powers may or may not have on Pacific Island countries. In the end, despite minor hints of withdrawal, the meeting proceeded as planned.
This consternation from outside the PIF was different from the mood inside the Leader’s Meeting itself, according to Tenorio. He suggested that the absence of external dialogue partners “provided an opportunity for the PIF members to self reflect and to be immersed in the agenda before them…There were still bilaterals that some countries were having, but I thought that the program that I observed and participated in was very business as usual.” He also noted that, like other leaders’ level summits, the main agenda items were agreed to ahead of time at lower levels.
Future Outlook and Opportunities
Guam’s associate membership at the PIF provides both the United States and Guam at the subnational level potential diplomatic opportunities. U.S. federal government investments in Guam are primarily focused on military concerns. However, the premise of U.S. strategic concern in the Pacific has opened increased opportunities for benefits to Guam’s civilian population via investments in resilient critical infrastructure, telecommunications, and manufacturing. These investments will require stakeholder engagement at all levels of government to minimize the political backlash of burden sharing by the approximately 170,000 U.S. citizens in Guam.
Even without strict policy coordination from Washington, Guam’s eagerness to explore connectivity solutions and a larger role in the PIF could enhance U.S. credibility by systemically projecting a syncretic mix of American and Micronesian ties, furthering the idea of the United States as a “Pacific nation.”
In addition, Guam may also serve as an example of the economic benefits of increased cooperation with the United States. Guam’s most recent Human Development Index rating is .901, which is in the “Very High” tier. This figure ranks it only behind Australia (.958) and New Zealand (.938) in the Pacific Islands region. This is especially important as Pacific Island states weigh the expected costs and benefits of calibrating their foreign policy decisions to favor the United States, China, Australia, Taiwan, or any other power.
At the same time, there may be more than a bit of irony in presenting Guam as an example of U.S. commitment to the region, given that it is one of 17 remaining Non-Self Governing Territories recognized by the United Nations. The political dynamics related to utilizing Guam in the bigger Pacific picture as part of U.S. strategy may be complicated, but the opportunities nonetheless exist.