The Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) announced that it has received a US$60 million payment for 2024 from the United States government under the Economic Assistance Agreement (EAA) associated with the Treaty on Fisheries.
The payment, which was confirmed by U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau earlier in the week, will be allocated to the 16 Pacific Island Parties that comprise the FFA’s membership.
“This is a positive and welcome development, and a clear demonstration of the US Government’s commitment to the EAA, the Treaty, and its cordial relationship with Pacific Island States,” said FFA Director-General Noan David Pakop.
Pakop expressed confidence that the initial payment would be a positive sign for the future of the agreement.
“We are confident that this initial payment will pave the way for the approval of the 2025 payment and future payments under the EAA,” he said.
The Treaty on Fisheries, which allows U.S. purse seine fishing vessels to operate within the Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) of the Pacific Island Parties, has been in effect for 37 years since it came into force in 1988.
Its terms and conditions have been periodically renegotiated, with the latest extension concluded in June 2024, extending the agreement for the next 10 years (2023-2033) with revised terms and a new financial package.
The 16 Pacific Island Parties involved are: Australia, Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu.
SOLOMON Islands Prime Minister, Jeremiah Manele’s recent decision to exclude global powers from the upcoming Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) leaders’ meeting has sparked considerable debate in Western media.
While some outlets have framed it as a snub or a sign of growing Chinese influence, a closer look at Manele’s background as a seasoned diplomat suggests a more strategic motivation.
Having served in various diplomatic roles prior to becoming Prime Minister, Manele is known for his measured approach and deep understanding of international relations.
His comments regarding the PIF decision, therefore, should not be dismissed as mere oversight or the result of external pressure.
Diplomatic Background drives Strategic Move
Prime Minister Manele’s decision is deeply rooted in his extensive background as a career diplomat. For decades, he has worked to advance the Solomon Islands’ interests on the international stage, giving him a unique perspective on managing relationships with powerful nations whilst prioritizing regional unity.
Manele’s experience includes serving as a counselor and later Chargé d’Affaires at the Solomon Islands Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York from 1997 to 2002.
He also held senior roles within the government, including Permanent Secretary of the MFAET and Secretary to the Prime Minister and Cabinet. These positions have given him a comprehensive understanding of the domestic and international considerations that shape his nation’s foreign policy.
In explaining the rationale behind the move, Manele explicitly referenced the 2023 Rarotonga Leaders’ Communique.
“It is a sovereign decision for Solomon Islands as the host. We are deferring the dialogue partners meeting because the process for the review and reform of the Post-Forum Dialogue is ongoing,” Manele says.
This emphasis on regional ownership and the need for a strengthened internal approach to engaging with external partners emphasizes a strategic objective.
Manele is seemingly prioritizing the unity and autonomy of the Pacific Islands Forum, while allowing member states the space to define their own terms of engagement before being potentially pulled in different directions by competing global interests.
“The deferral aims to give the region time to strengthen our collective approach to engaging with our partners,” he further elaborated.
While the potential participation of Taiwan and China’s strong opposition are widely speculated to be a contributing factor, Manele’s public statements have consistently focused on the procedural aspects and the need to reinforce the Forum’s internal processes.
This diplomatic manoeuvring could be interpreted as an attempt to prevent a divisive issue from overshadowing the core agenda of the PIF, which traditionally centers on pressing regional concerns like climate change, the protection of the Pacific Ocean, and sustainable development.
The decision has elicited varied reactions from both within, and outside the Pacific.
While some leaders have voiced concerns, others appear to understand the strategic rationale.
President of Palau, Surangel Whipps Jr, whose nation maintains ties with Taiwan, has publicly supported the deferral, suggesting a degree of regional understanding for Manele’s approach.
Ultimately, Jeremiah Manele’s diplomatic background lends assurance to the interpretation that the decision to defer dialogue partners is a calculated move, prioritizing regional solidarity and a more unified approach to external engagement.
Whether this strategic gambit will serve the long-term interests of the Blue Pacific remains to be seen, but it undoubtedly reflects a deliberate and well-meaning effort to navigate the complex geopolitical landscape with the region’s best interests at heart.
With the withdrawal of much of USAID’s presence from the Pacific, I quietly hoped that the region could absorb it — maybe even take it as the jolt needed to “go all in on betting on ourselves”. We are building resilience to this donor merry-go-round and, if history is any guide, it will likely cycle back at some point.
What stands to have lasting long-term impact is US President Trump’s Executive Order 14285, aimed at fast-tracking deep-sea mineral (DSM) exploration in the Pacific, outside the oversight of the International Seabed Authority (ISA). It potentially opens the door to a “critical minerals race” fuelled by geopolitics, with the Pacific Ocean at its centre, sidelining Pacific nations who have registered through the ISA. Beyond the clear subversion of international law, the implications for the Blue Pacific’s marine biodiversity and future generations are profound.
If DSM ventures proceed outside ISA oversight, it provides yet another example of why it is so important for the Pacific nations to begin framing a rules-based order to protect the Blue Pacific Continent.
But this urgency raises a more uncomfortable truth — one that continues to undercut Pacific efforts — that, at its core, the problem is not external actors. It’s not the US. It’s us.
At its source, Pacific regionalism is about enabling Pacific nations to work better together. While it is important to acknowledge the many challenges that confront regionalism, we must also recognize that we are not immune from ourselves.
Despite our aspiration of what Pacific regionalism “ought” to be, we remain embedded in a Euro-centric model — one in which we are shaped, not by what we choose to be, but what we are paid to become.
Our region has, for decades, been carried by a vision of solidarity and collective action. Epeli Hau’ofa gave us the metaphor — our sea of islands — and we speak often of the Blue Pacific Continent and the 2050 Strategy for it as an expression of agency and collective sovereignty.
And yet, without solidarity, these narratives ring hollow. When it comes to some of the most pressing challenges of today — ocean governance, regional security, human rights — we are divided, hesitant or silent enablers.
A Pacific High-Level Talanoa (dialogue) on Deep Sea Mining was convened in February, with officials tasked to develop options for a regional approach for Forum Leaders; consideration in Honiara later this year. But DSM is not merely a regional or legal issue. It exposes deeper political, structural and cognitive fractures within the region, revealing the fragility of consensus-building, dollar-diplomacy and internalised dependencies. In this respect, regionalism is not failing because of external pressure; it is eroding under the weight of our reluctance to make hard, collective choices.
This is not about attributing blame. Rather, it’s an opportunity to reflect.
Having spent most of my career working in and around national governments, I’ve been part of the very machinery that enables these dynamics. At the moment, it feels like we’re advancing national interests, responding to pressing needs or navigating political realities. It feels like we’re working together. But are we truly collaborating or are we simply managing each other?
When you step back — and especially from a distance — the picture sharpens. There’s a certain perspective that comes when you step outside the system as I have. A part of you has never really left yet you’re removed from the grind. That’s where reflection lives, I think — somewhere between hope and cynicism, believing in the idea of Pacific-led regionalism in a reality ripe with the limitations of process, power and political motivations.
In 2019, Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) leaders endorsed a comprehensive review of the regional architecture in Tuvalu, aligning it with the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent. The regional architecture here refers to the Pacific nations, external partners, regional institutions, processes — and most importantly — Pacific people who give life to Pacific regionalism. It was an important moment — an attempt to take stock and reimagine — but, six years on, the review is ongoing.
A new High-Level Panel established by PIF Troika Leaders has begun its consultations across the region on the regional architecture. The now-former Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa of Samoa recently said that the consultations seeks to answer three questions: Is Pacific unity still there? Do we still want it? If we do, what do we want it to look like?
The review will consider options for the rationalisation — or amalgamation — of regional institutions, amid growing concern that there are simply too many. Yet the regional architecture is now more complex, fragmented and contested than perhaps at any other point in its history. Compared to six years ago, the region is navigating a far more strained geopolitical landscape. Pacific nations have become more vulnerable — economically, environmentally and strategically — at the very time when external engagement has become more heavy-handed. This has contributed to a deepening over-reliance on Australia, New Zealand and, increasingly, China.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the Pacific’s regional security architecture. The Boe Declaration on Regional Security, endorsed in 2018, was intended to re-centre the region’s security needs squarely on climate change, human security and sustainable development.
But as external powers seek access and influence in the Blue Pacific Continent, the region has become heavily securitised and militarised — further complicating efforts to foster regional unity and cooperation. This has led some Pacific academics to call for the demilitarisation of the region.
Initiatives like AUKUS, expanded military partnerships and intelligence-sharing arrangements mask a creeping model of regionalism that appears to be preparing itself for future conflict. We are told this will keep us safe — but at what cost to our sovereignty, and to our future generations?
And this takes us back to the question that continues to plague Pacific regionalism: Who is driving regionalism, if not us?
Outside of process-oriented solutions, we tend to avoid holding heart-to-heart political talanoa on confronting and divisive issues including the influence of Australia, New Zealand and external partners, the China-Taiwan issue, DSM, regional security, and the place of territories within our shared future. It has long been argued, for example, that decolonization and regionalism are inseparable.
It would be a mistake, however, to assume that regionalism lives and dies at the hands of political leaders alone. Political will does not exist in a vacuum. It grows (or withers) within an ecosystem of public expectations, institutional interest and electoral cycles.
The end-game of regionalism is not the communique delivered at the annual PIF Leaders Meeting. It is a set of practices, compromises and choices that we, collectively, either uphold or allow to erode. Without conviction — without a shared belief in the value of standing together — these gatherings risk becoming rituals of aspiration with little action.
I firmly believe that Pacific regionalism is ultimately about people and relationships. But relationships are extremely difficult to manage, especially in a region as diverse and dispersed as ours. Sub-regionalism, domestic pressures and competing priorities all take their toll. And then there are the silences — the moments when we choose not to speak, not to take a stand, not to challenge each other when the stakes are high.
There is no single fix for the problems of Pacific regionalism. But perhaps the shift we need is not just structural reform — but a relational shift as well — from fragmented interest to a sense of shared purpose — moving beyond the talk. And it begins not with external forces, donors or declarations, but with us.
That’s the hardest part. It requires sacrifice, trust, willingness to endure short-term pains for longer-term gain. Hopefully, the current review of the regional architecture can encourage us to take that leap.
If we don’t, someone else will happily do so. And we will continue to follow.
Written by: Sione Tekiteki
Joel Nilon is presenting a paper on the Blue Pacific rules-based order co-authored with Sione Tekiteki at the 2025 Pacific Update which will be held on 3-5 June at the University of the South Pacific’s Laucala Campus in Suva, Fiji. Visit the event webpage for more details on this free event and the livestream of keynote sessions.
This article appeared first on Devpolicy Blog (devpolicy.org), from the Development Policy Centre at The Australian National University.
Sione Tekiteki is a senior lecturer at the Auckland University of Technology. He previously served at the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat in three positions over nine years, most recently as Director, Governance and Engagement.
Seven Fisheries Ministers and Heads of Fisheries Departments from the Pacific Region converged into East New Britain at the start of this month led by the Minister for Fisheries and Marine Resources of Papua New Guinea, Jelta Wong for the Pacific Island Ministers East New Britain Initiative.
The Ministers and departmental heads were all invited to sit in on two high-level meetings to discuss key issues related to fisheries management, conservation, and sustainable development in the Pacific region.
The Forum Fisheries Committee meeting based on the U.S treaty distribution of funds was the first on the agenda. This meeting provided the platform for all heads of Fisheries in the Pacific to dialogue on how best to distribute the US$6million provided by the U.S Government to island nations that are members of the Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA) treaty.
Justin Ilakini, NFA Managing Director.
Managing Director of the National Fisheries Authority, Justin Ilakini said: “the aim of this meeting is to broker a deal amongst all parties involved to reach an agreement on an equal distribution of the funds to aid in development of the sector in smaller island nations of the Pacific Region.
The second meeting, the Pacific Island Ministers East New Britain Initiative saw PNG take the lead in providing the platform for Pacific Ministers across the region to create dialogue in addressing two key issues.
The first being climate change and the second, to tap into opportunities to maximize economic returns from the Pacific’s shared tuna resource.
Mr Ilakini in a press conference in Kokopo expressed hope that the leaders will identify practical ways of implementing the forum leaders’ development aspirations as contained in the Blue Pacific Continent.
“We are leading the initiative and providing the platform for our Pacific Island leaders to have the opportunity to have a voice in speaking from their own National Levels to see how we can collaborate as a region to drive the Pacific Island interest going forward in this multi-million-dollar industry which we have come to know as one of the most lucrative industries that we have; the tuna industry.”
To this, PNG’s Minister for Fisheries explained that the whole meet was to create a purpose for the region and showcase what the region is capable of doing in this space.
He further elaborated that the focus is on creating more wealth for the Pacific and controlling the stocks of the Pacific’s shared tuna resources against world players in the global tuna market.
“It’s better that if we stand united as one, the world will know that they can’t come and pick us off one by one”
Minister Wong said, that the initiative further aims to foster dialogue on better ways to mitigate Illegal, Unregulated and Unreported (IUU) fishing; capitalize on the tuna resource; and ensure that the Pacific gets the best value from its shared tuna resource.
