President Obama insisted Tuesday that his “pivot to Asia” is real and will outlast his time in office.
“America’s interest in the Asia Pacific is not new,” he assured an audience in Vientiane, Laos, on Tuesday. “It’s not a passing fad.”
“In the United States, across the political spectrum, there’s widespread recognition that the Asia Pacific [region] will become even more important in the century ahead,” he said.
Obama noted that Asia is home to “five of our treaty allies” and will “shape the course of global security.” More than half the world’s population lives in Asia, as does the fastest-growing middle class, he said.
“So for all these reasons, I’ve worked to re-balance our foreign policy so the United States is playing a larger and long-term role in the Asia Pacific region,” he said.
Obama promised to be a partner in the region’s security, underscoring new defense guidelines reached with Japan, an access agreement with the Philippines and Marines stationed in Australia, allowing the U.S. to “respond even faster to regional challenges.”
By 2020, the Navy and Air Force will maintain a majority of their fleets in the Pacific, he said.
Obama also ticked off his efforts to strengthen economic ties with Asian countries the U.S. previously had little or no trading relationships with, such as Vietnam and Myanmar, and his commitment to regional organizations, such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, whose summit he is attending in Laos this week.
“Since I took office, we’ve boosted U.S. exports to the Asia Pacific by 50 percent,” he said.
Under Obama’s watch, “the U.S. and China are cooperating in more areas than ever — from preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, to our shared commitment to denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula to our historic leadership together on climate change,” he said.
“The United States welcomes the rise of a China that is peaceful and stable and prosperous and a responsible player in global affairs, because we believe that that will benefit all of us.”
Obama promised that kind of Asian engagement “is here to stay. In good times and bad, you can count on the United States of America.”
