Michael J. Green
U.S. Asia policy over the last 40 years has been a success. There have been no major interstate wars in East Asia since 1979. The United States has built a dense and increasingly collaborative network of alliances and partnerships that enjoys bipartisan support. American private sector investment in Asian countries with the region’s largest economies dwarfs that of any other country, and the United States is the primary destination for foreign direct investment from all major economies in Asia (except China). Even as democracy erodes elsewhere, many countries in the region remain vibrant democracies. And thanks to a strong basis of bipartisan agreement, U.S. policymaking in the region can often rise above the gridlock and polarization in Washington.
With his victory in the 2024 presidential election, Donald Trump will inherit a formidable Asia policy that has been passed down through Republican and Democratic administrations. President Joe Biden built his impressive record in the region around this consensus. The diplomatic partnership among Australia, India, Japan, and the United States known as the Quad, or Quadrilateral Dialogue, which Biden elevated from a ministerial-level forum to a leaders’ summit, began under George W. Bush’s administration as a joint task force to rescue victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and was revived by the Trump administration as a regular meeting of the members’ foreign ministers. (Biden acknowledged the Quad’s bipartisan lineage at the first summit held during his presidency.) Biden’s initiatives on U.S. military force posture, semiconductor technology controls, and trilateral relations with Japan and Korea all have roots in the Bush, Obama, or Trump administrations. And the new components his presidency added, such as AUKUS (the submarine and defense technology partnership among Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States), enjoy broad support in Congress and will likely endure for administrations to come. Once in office, Trump will not lack for potential avenues for engagement in Asia.
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