ARIA and the Trump Problem

On the final day of 2018, U.S. President Donald J. Trump signed the Asia Reassurance Initiative Act (ARIA) into law. The White House described the act’s main contribution to the U.S. approach to Asia as establishing “a multifaceted U.S. strategy to increase U.S. security, economic interests, and values in the Indo-Pacific region.” But what does the act do and will it really help shift the needle on the existing trajectory for U.S. policy in the Indo-Pacific region?

ARIA’s name alone evokes the earlier U.S. European Reassurance Initiative (ERI), which was announced in June 2014 to underline enduring U.S. commitments to Europe following Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine earlier that year. Though not an act of Congress, the ERI, which was later renamed the European Deterrence Initiative, was put forth as a response to an acute event in the region. Critically, it was born of a recognition that Washington had to put its money where its mouth was. It added $1 billion in emergency response funds to concerns about Russian aggression in Europe.

ARIA’s nominal similarity to the ERI shouldn’t obscure its quite different nature. With the act’s signing into law, an extra $1.5 billion a year will be authorized for U.S. spending on a range of programs in East and Southeast Asia to support broader U.S. engagement in the Indo-Pacific. Like the ERI, the act throws resources behind the Trump administration’s self-professed interest in forging a “free and open” Indo-Pacific region. Unlike the ERI, ARIA does not respond to a particular acute incident like the annexation of Crimea, but is generally designed to underline Washington’s presence in Asia.

ARIA’s passage was a fitting end to 2018, which marked the fastest general decline in U.S.-China relations in years. The act is framed in positive terms, as a tool to encourage U.S. actions that might “reassure” allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific, but it also explicitly pushes back on China’s ongoing attempts to build itself a discrete sphere of influence in the region. Its provisions are also largely complementary to the Trump administration’s articulated National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy documents, released in 2017 and 2018 respectively. Where those documents were used by the executive branch to set its priorities, ARIA allows U.S. lawmakers to play an advisory role over how the executive works to implement its Asia policy.

Toward the end of helping develop a long-term approach to Asia – one that might outlast this administration – ARIA works along several axes. A major focus is the improvement of the defense capacities of allied and partner states in Asia. Like the Maritime Security Initiative before it, ARIA gives the Trump administration a mandate to help regional allies and partners improve their ability to resist coercion and augment deterrence against revisionist challenges – primarily from China. Unlike previous initiatives, the new geographic logic of the Indo-Pacific is apparent, with India fully included in the act.

The law “recognizes the vital role of the strategic partnership between the United States and India in promoting peace and security in the Indo-Pacific region.” It further builds on the 2016 designation of New Delhi as a Major Defense Partner by the Obama administration – a bespoke status, akin to that of a major non-NATO ally, that only India enjoys. India’s positioning in ARIA reflects the times. Since the 2014 inauguration of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, defense commercial ties between Washington and New Delhi have quickly accelerated and the strategic frame of the Indo-Pacific in both capitals has furthered this.

The South China Sea, the geopolitical fulcrum of the Indo-Pacific, receives considerable attention in ARIA as well. The law calls for the president to “develop a diplomatic strategy that includes working with United States allies and partners to conduct joint maritime training and freedom of navigation operations in the Indo-Pacific region, including the East China Sea and the South China Sea, in support of a rules-based international system benefiting all countries.”

ARIA’s recommendations clash with the Trump administration’s “America First” diplomatic instincts in the push to “promote genuine multilateral negotiations” to resolve maritime disputes in accordance with international law. Surprisingly, the law does not enshrine the 2016 decision by the Hague-based arbitral tribunal in the Philippines’ 2013 case against China over the South China Sea as one of the cornerstones of U.S. policy. Officials across the Obama and Trump administrations have argued that the 2016 ruling, in which nearly every submission was adjudicated in the Philippines’ favor, must be binding on all parties.

A notable area of focus for ARIA is Taiwan, which makes sense given the historical genesis of the Taiwan Relations Act as an attempt by the legislative branch to exercise influence over then-President Jimmy Carter’s China policy. ARIA’s signing into law, just a day shy of the 40th anniversary of the Second U.S.-China Joint Communiqué that established bilateral diplomatic ties and severed U.S. diplomatic ties with Taiwan, is again a recognition of the unique threat that democratic Taiwan today faces from an increasingly powerful and confident China.

ARIA devotes considerable energy to reasserting U.S. support for Taiwan and calls on the president of the United States to “encourage the travel of high-level United States officials to Taiwan, in accordance with the Taiwan Travel Act,” which was made law in 2018. ARIA calls for the U.S. president to support the transfer of “defense articles” to Taiwan and promote high-level official visits as well.

Underscoring its comprehensive nature, ARIA also covers issues ranging from human rights, to nonproliferation (on the Korean Peninsula and across the region), to terrorism. On North Korea, it requires the White House to certify any decision to remove sanctions on Pyongyang by pointing to specific actions taken on denuclearization – a possible obstacle to an interim agreement should the ongoing diplomacy between North Korea and the United States lead to any progress.

Beyond its various provisions and details, ARIA exposes the fundamental gap that remains in U.S. Asia policy. Even as U.S. activities in Asia grow broader than ever and find more funding, the fundamental underlying strategy remains unclear – even within the Trump administration’s own strategy documents. Recent public opinion surveys across the region reveal a lack of confidence in Trump’s stewardship of the United States in the region, too, underscoring the political challenges to reassurance that no amount of congressionally sanctioned spending can overcome.