U.S.-Tonga Relations
The partnership between the US and Tonga is broad and deep, primarily based on shared values and shut cooperation on issues starting from combating the local weather disaster to enhancing maritime safety and fostering cooperation and growth within the area. The Kingdom of Tonga was a protected state of the UK till 1970. It’s the South Pacific’s final Polynesian kingdom, a constitutional hereditary monarchy. America counseled Tonga for its transfer towards fuller democracy by way of the 2010 election of its first fashionable majority parliament and subsequent elections in 2014, 2017, and 2021, which worldwide observers deemed free and truthful, in addition to its ongoing growth of an lively and vibrant civil society.
Tonga has contributed considerably to worldwide peace and safety. From 2004 to 2008, Tonga deployed 4 contingents of troopers to Iraq for durations of six months. In 2010, Tonga deployed the primary contingent of 55 troopers to Afghanistan in help of the British Armed Forces’ efforts within the Worldwide Safety Help Pressure. Tonga deployed 330 troopers to help U.Okay. forces in Afghanistan between 2010 and 2014. U.S. and Tongan navy forces maintain annual joint coaching workout routines, and the Nevada Nationwide Guard entered right into a State Partnership Program with Tonga in 2014.
Our shared historical past with Tonga additionally contains the Tongan American group, which numbers virtually 70,000. Tongan Individuals have made an influence in lots of aspects of U.S. tradition, significantly by way of American soccer, the place many athletes have made their mark. Some have even been profiled within the movie “In Soccer We Belief,” which brings a highlight to the Polynesian group within the state of Utah.
U.S. Help to Tonga
Over 1,700 Peace Corps volunteers have served in Tonga since 1967. Averaging 50 Peace Corps Volunteers for about 100,000 Tongans, Peace Corps Tonga has one of many highest per capita packages on this planet. Peace Corp volunteers lately returned to Tonga following the top of the COVID-19 pandemic.
America is the biggest single monetary contributor to the COVAX Facility, from which Tonga has acquired roughly 48,000 COVID-19 AstraZeneca vaccine doses. In January 2022, USAID supplied $2.6 million in humanitarian help to help folks affected by volcanic eruptions and tsunami waves in Tonga. Previous to this, in Might 2020, USAID supplied $1 million to Act for Peace to fund safety and catastrophe threat discount actions to incorporate coordination with native organizations to conduct catastrophe simulation workout routines and consciousness on the inclusion of individuals with disabilities. Tonga advantages from USAID’s COVID–19 help on an infection, prevention and management; threat communication; surveillance; and lab help supplied by way of grants to the UN Youngsters’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Well being Group (WHO).
Tonga additionally advantages from USAID regional packages to answer disasters and construct group resilience to adapt to local weather change. The Local weather Prepared venture (2016-2021) and Institutional Strengthening in Pacific Island International locations (PIC) to Adapt to Local weather Change program (2015-2021) helps resilience constructing alternatives and are instrumental in supporting local weather adaptation planning. Tonga joined the World Methane Pledge, and digital Embassy Science Fellows (ESF) from the U.S. Departments of Power and Inside are serving to to develop a climate-resilient clear power infrastructure plan for Tonga. The U.S. Commerce and Growth Company (USTDA) signed an settlement with Tonga in April to conduct a feasibility examine for photo voltaic power infrastructure enlargement.
America is a serious monetary contributor to worldwide and regional organizations that help Tonga, together with the Asian Growth Financial institution (ADB), World Financial institution, UN Youngsters’s Fund, World Well being Group, and UN Fund for Inhabitants Actions. Tonga receives International Navy Financing (FMF) to equip its navy and participates within the Worldwide Navy Training and Coaching (IMET) program, which sends Tongan officers and senior enlisted personnel to skilled navy training and management growth programs in the US. The Nevada Nationwide Guard has a State Partnership Program with Tonga, with whom it commonly conducts joint coaching. America additionally has a ship-rider settlement with Tonga to supply safety and help ship-rider missions which permit Tongan regulation enforcement officers to journey aboard U.S. Coast Guard vessels. America additionally contributes U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Navy air belongings to regional Discussion board Fisheries Company (FFA) operations that assist fight IUU fishing within the nation’s unique financial zone (EEZ) and helps the long-term sustainability of the fisheries assets. Moreover, Tonga is a daily participant in U.S. Pacific Command sponsored workshops on matters together with humanitarian help/catastrophe reduction, maritime safety, peacekeeping, and worldwide humanitarian regulation.
Bilateral Financial Relations
Tonga’s economic system is characterised by a big non-monetary sector and a heavy dependence on remittances from the greater than half of the nation’s inhabitants that lives overseas, mainly in Australia, New Zealand, and the US, significantly in Utah, California, and Hawaii. America has a commerce surplus with Tonga, with two-way items commerce of roughly $17 million in 2020. Exports from Tonga are led by frozen fish and seafood and cultural handicrafts for the Tongan diaspora. Tonga is a celebration to the U.S.-Pacific Islands Multilateral South Pacific Tuna Treaty, which gives fisheries entry for U.S. fishing vessels in alternate for a license payment paid by U.S. trade. Underneath a separate Financial Help Settlement related to the Treaty, the US authorities gives $21 million per yr to the Pacific Island events.
Tonga’s Membership in Worldwide Organizations
Tonga and the US belong to lots of the identical worldwide organizations, together with the United Nations, Worldwide Financial Fund, World Financial institution, Asian Growth Financial institution, Worldwide Atomic Power Company, the World Commerce Group, the World Well being Group, the Pacific Neighborhood, and the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environmental Programme. Tonga can also be a member of the Pacific Islands Discussion board, of which the US is a Dialogue Companion.
America held its first ever U.S.-Pacific Islands Summit in Washington, D.C. in September 2022, at which the Kingdom of Tonga was represented, to broaden and deepen cooperation on key points reminiscent of local weather change, pandemic response, financial restoration, maritime safety, environmental safety, and advancing a free and open Pacific area. Individuals within the U.S.-Pacific Island Nation Summit issued the Declaration on the U.S.-Pacific Partnership, a forward-looking imaginative and prescient assertion reflecting our shared dedication to broaden and deepen our cooperation within the years forward.
Public Diplomacy
The embassy maintains an American Nook in Tonga, which serves as a public platform for native engagement. Not too long ago, the Public Affairs Part carried out a number of instructional {and professional} alternate packages in Tonga, together with the Fulbright program and Younger Pacific Leaders. The Embassy additionally partnered with native organizations on small grant initiatives to deal with the local weather disaster, promote catastrophe resilience and inclusive financial prosperity, and promote examine of Science, Know-how, Engineering, and Math (STEM). By way of two totally different Ambassador’s Fund for Cultural Preservation (AFCP) grants totaling over $100,000, the US helped protect the twelfth Century Royal Tombs.
Bilateral Illustration
America opened an Embassy to the Kingdom of Tonga in Nuku‘alofa on Might 9, 2023, lower than one yr after Vice President Harris introduced at a gathering of the Pacific Islands Discussion board that the US would start discussions with Tonga concerning its curiosity in establishing an embassy there.
Establishing an embassy will pave the best way for the US to reinforce its diplomatic engagement with Tonga, together with by way of the potential appointment of a resident Ambassador to Tonga.
Principal embassy officers are listed within the Division’s Key Officers Checklist.
Tonga has no embassy in Washington, D.C. however has a everlasting consultant to the United Nations in New York, who can also be accredited as ambassador to the US. Tonga maintains a Consulate-Common in San Francisco, California.
Extra details about Tonga is out there from the Division of State and different sources, a few of that are listed right here:
CIA World Factbook Tonga Web page
U.S. Embassy
U.S. Census Bureau International Commerce Statistics
Journey Info