The United States remains strongly committed to Asia but wants its partners to bear more of the burden for their own defense, a senior Pentagon official said in the Philippines yesterday.
Seeking to counter concerns about Washington’s reliability, given the capricious character of U.S. foreign policy under the second Trump administration, Undersecretary of War Elbridge Colby said that U.S. interests were “more engaged than ever in the Indo-Pacific.”
“America is definitely not disengaging from Asia,” Colby said in a speech in Manila. “We are not leaving; in fact, we are digging in to ensure a favorable balance of power where it matters most.”
Colby made the remarks at a forum in the Philippines, his first stop on a Southeast Asian tour that will also take him and Assistant Secretary of War John Noh to Indonesia, Thailand, and Cambodia. In a statement, the Department of War said that trip, which will involve meetings with senior officials in each country, “reaffirms the Department’s commitment to build a durable peace in the region through strength.”
During the trip, Colby said in his Manila speech, he intended to “deliver a clear message that is at once both realistic and perhaps bracing but also reassuring: That America’s interests are more engaged than ever in the Indo-Pacific, and that we at the Department of War are concentrated on ensuring those interests are stoutly defended.”
