Step or Stumble

The Obama administration's signature foreign policy initiative has been a rebalance to the Asia-Pacific. After 8 years of enhancing U. S. efforts in Asia, serious challenges to U. S. interests persist, and some of them have even grown. the Trans-Pacific Partnership may be end up being the outgoing Obama administration's most lasting failure. The administration chose to use this economic agreement as a strategic anchor in Asia and tried to market the deal at home by saying that it would allow us to write the rules for free trade. Now that the prospect of TPP ratification in the United States is effectively dead, our Asian partners are questioning the endurance of U. S. leadership in the region. Without a concerted economic engagement with all parts of Asia, China will fill the void with its willingness to fund much-needed infrastructure without regard to intellectual property, labor and environmental standards. China has been, and will continue to be a land of challenges and opportunities. The need to strike a proper balance of working together on economic prosperity, with a willingness to stand firm when necessary, will continue under our President-elect Trump's tenure. Our business community and economy are under threat from regulations and policies designed to favor Chinese interests and domestic firms. Threats from cyber-enabled economic espionage and intellectual property theft continue unabated.