Mike Pompeo, US secretary of state, yesterday set out the Trump administration’s plans to respond to China’s $1tn international investment drive and boost the US’s role in the Indo-Pacific through what he hailed as a “new era” of investment.
But the most concrete commitment laid out in a set-piece speech by the US’s top diplomat was a pledge to invest a mere $113m in the digital, energy and infrastructure sectors. The overall plan fell well short of an earlier trade initiative rejected by President Donald Trump.
“These funds represent a downpayment on a new era in US economic commitment to peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific,” Mr Pompeo told the Indo-Pacific Business Forum in Washington, adding that“a big part” of the US’s international economic future lay in the region. “This is a strategic American investment in the most competitive part of the world for years to come.”