By Pacific Island Times News Staff
Rep. Uifa’atali Amata Coleman Radewagen vowed to bring Pacific influence
to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, to which she has been appointed to serve while continuing her concurrent role as vice chair of the Subcommittee on East Asia and the Pacific.
“My primary focus will always be American Samoa, but our islands are strategically located in an area that is the subject of an ongoing Pacific pivot by the United States, and growing activity by (Chinese Communist Party),” said Radewagen, American Samoa's delegate to Congress.
Washington has increased its engagement in the Indo-Pacific region amid China’s influence-peddling. The communist regime’s increasingly aggressive behavior and persistent threats to invade Taiwan have triggered regional anxiety.
Since 2019, China has snatched three Pacific island allies— Kiribati, the Solomon Islands and Nauru— from Taiwan.
In August 2023, the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources conducted a field congressional hearing on Guam to "examine the importance of the U.S. territories and the freely associated states to the United States’ ability to counter China’s malign influence and maintain our nation’s strategic interests in the region.”
The U.S. is banking on its exclusive defense rights in Palau, the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia to keep China at bay.
“The United States is making our national commitment to the region clear, but there are ongoing challenges and policy decisions for the future in how we best accomplish our objectives in partnership with the other Pacific nations,” Radewagen said.
“I bring the perspective of American Samoa, and more broadly, the Pacific islands, to our committee work,” said the delegate who also co-chairs the Congressional Pacific Islands Caucus and serves as vice chair of the Congressional Western Caucus.
Radewagen will also serve on the Subcommittee on Africa, which the delegate said “has key policy and legislative ties to the Pacific region through oversight of international organizations that already work with Africa and the Pacific or are possibilities to expand into the Pacific.”
In the Committee on Natural Resources, Radewagen has assumed a new role as vice chair of the Subcommittee on Indian and Insular Affairs.
She also serves in the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, where she has a position of seniority as vice chair of the full committee.
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