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 Asian partners and ASEAN. Our own work with South Asian partners will prioritize building mechanisms to address humanitarian-assistance and disaster-relief needs, maritime security, water scarcity, and pandemic response. We will seek to be an indispensable partner to Pacific Island nations, in ever-closer coordination with other partners who share that commitment, and will meaningfully expand our diplomatic presence in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands. We will also prioritize negotiations on our Compacts of Free Association with the Freely Associated States as the bedrock of the U.S. role in the Pacific.

Allies and partners outside of the region are increasingly committing new attention to the Indo-Pacific, particularly the EU and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). We will harness this opportunity to align our approaches and will implement our initiatives in coordination to multiply our effectiveness. We will partner to build regional connectivity with an emphasis on the digital domain, as well as to uphold international law, particularly in the maritime space. Along the way, we will build bridges between the Indo-Pacific and the Euro-Atlantic, and, increasingly, with other regions, by leading on shared agendas that drive collective action. We will also advance our common vision through close coordination at the United Nations.

Our ties do not just connect our governments, but bridge our people. The United States is the leading international provider of education to students from the Indo-Pacific—nearly 68% of international students studying in the United States hail from the region—forging ties that help to fuel next-generation dynamism in both of our countries. We will reinvigorate youth-leadership, educational, and professional exchanges and English-language training programs that have long anchored our bonds, including through the Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative (YSEALI). At the same time, we will promote new partnerships for cutting-edge joint research in critical domains of science and technology, including through the new Quad Fellowship, which will support graduate studies of Australian, Japanese, Indian, and American students in STEM fields. Through these and other programs we will continue to invest in the next generation of people-to-people connections. 10