It’s no longer Asia-Pacific, Donald Trump says. US now calls it ‘Indo-Pacific’
By using ‘Indo-Pacific’, the administration wants to propagate the idea that it’s a region that stretches far beyond China’s backyard and the tiger economies of East Asia
US President Donald Trump isn’t just remaking American foreign policy in Asia by tearing up trade deals and getting tough on North Korea. His administration is giving the region a whole new name.
For decades, the vast expanse of ocean and continent that spans from Australia to India has been referred to in Washington as the “Asia-Pacific” – a region where the US views itself as a benign and stabilising presence.
But as Trump prepares for a five-nation Asian tour, White House officials and even the president himself were steering clear of that term and using “Indo-Pacific” instead.
The national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, used it repeatedly when he previewed the trip for reporters on Thursday. He boasted that the president “has placed 43 calls to Indo-Pacific leaders” since he took office.
Trump also used the term in public remarks at a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
A cynic might say it’s yet another effort to distance the upstart Republican president from his predecessor Barack Obama, who invested much time and effort to “pivot” American foreign policy from the military quagmires it had encountered in the Mideast to the fast-growing economies of Asia.
“Let there be no doubt,” Obama told the Australian parliament in November 2011.