Australia is racing to identify the South Pacific’s most pressing funding needs as the US moves to slash its foreign aid budget, Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Penny Wong (黃英賢) said yesterday.
Crucial food, climate and medical programs in the Pacific islands were left in limbo after US President Donald Trump’s administration announced a 90-day freeze on foreign aid last month.
Wong said Australia had started auditing which Pacific programs were most at risk, with a view to shouldering some of the burden.
Photo: Reuters
However, Wong warned it was “unrealistic” to think Australia — already the Pacific’s largest aid donor — could totally fill the gap left by the US. Senior Ministry for Foreign Affairs official Jamie Isbister said Australia had already started considering how it could step up.
“It is not a one-stop review and done. The situation is fluid and we have to look at how we adapt our programs in response to that,” he told a government hearing yesterday.
The pair’s comments were made just hours before the US confirmed it would slash US$54 billion from overseas development and foreign aid budgets — cutting 92 percent of multi-year contracts. Many aid agencies in the South Pacific have spent weeks bracing for the impact of the anticipated cuts.
Disaster-prone, isolated and threatened by rising seas, tropical Pacific Island states are some of the most aid-reliant nations on Earth, development agencies have said.
The US has for years helped to buy life-saving medicine for tropical disease, combat illegal fishing, and better prepare coastal hamlets for earthquakes and typhoons.
In a foreign policy “snapshot” released yesterday, the Australian government said that Trump’s “America First” agenda would see the US playing a “different role” in the world. China, by contrast, continues to dish out hundreds of millions of dollars in aid, grants and loans targeted at the South Pacific.
In 2022, China spent US$256 million, up nearly 14 percent from three years earlier, while the US spent US$249 million, the Sydney-based Lowy Institute think tank said.
Australia provides the most aid to the Pacific — US$12.9 billion since 2008, the Lowy Institute said.
However, Australia’s foreign policy snapshot warned of turbulent times ahead.
“Authoritarianism is spreading. Some countries are shifting alignment,” Wong wrote in the paper. “Institutions we built are being eroded, and rules we wrote are being challenged.”
“Australians can see a scale of global challenges unprecedented since World War II,” she added.
School bullies in Singapore are to face caning under new guidelines, but the education minister on Tuesday said it would be meted out only as a last resort with strict safeguards. Human rights groups regularly criticize Singapore for the use of corporal punishment, which remains part of the school and criminal justice systems, but authorities have defended it as a deterrent to crime and serious misconduct. Caning was discussed in the parliament after legislators asked how it would be used in relation to bullying in schools. The debate followed stricter guidelines on serious student misconduct, including bullying, unveiled by the Singaporean Ministry of
As evening falls in Fiji’s capital, a steady stream of people approaches a makeshift clinic that is a first line of defense against one of the world’s fastest-growing HIV epidemics. In the South Pacific nation — a popular tourist destination of just under a million people — more than 2,000 new HIV cases were recorded last year, a 26 percent increase from 2024. The government has declared an HIV outbreak and described it as a national crisis. “It’s spreading like wildfire,” said Siteri Dinawai, 46, who came to be tested. The Moonlight Clinic, a converted minibus parked in a suburban cul-de-sac in Suva, is
A MESSAGE: Japan’s participation in the Balikatan drills is a clear deterrence signal to China not to attack Taiwan while the US is busy in the Middle East, an analyst said The Japan Self-Defense Forces yesterday fired a Type 88 anti-ship missile during a joint maritime exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces, hitting a decommissioned Philippine Navy ship in waters facing the disputed South China Sea, in drills that underscore Tokyo’s rising willingness to project military power on China’s doorstep. The drill took place as Manila and Tokyo began talks on a potential defense equipment transfer, made possible by Japan’s decision to scrap restrictions on military exports. The discussions include the possible early transfer of Abukuma-class destroyers and TC-90 aircraft to the Philippines, Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi said. Philippine Secretary of
Separatists in Alberta are preparing to submit a petition tomorrow that they said has enough signatures to force a referendum on independence for the oil-rich Canadian province. Polls indicate the pro-independence camp remains a minority among Alberta’s 5 million people, but has hit a historic high of roughly 30 percent. Alberta separatists are also closer than ever to forcing a referendum, riding momentum fueled by intensifying grievances over Ottawa’s control of the provincial oil industry. They have also undeniably gotten a boost from the return to power of US President Donald Trump. After launching a petition in January, Stay Free Alberta, the group
RSS