Our relationship with the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RML) began going downhill almost as soon as Joe Biden took office. America’s compact with the island nation, known as the Compact of Free Association, is set to expire this year and they have some new demands they have been pushing us to discuss, but they’ve received very little diplomatic attention from the White House. This has left the RML looking at other possible options and China has been courting them heavily. Now, with the eleventh hour approaching and Beijing knocking on their door, perhaps we’ll make some progress. (Better late than never, I suppose.) The AP is reporting that the Biden administration is in talks to renew our compact. They are also reportedly closing in on negotiations with Palau. Now we just have to cross our fingers and hope that there’s someone inside this administration competent enough to pull off the deal.

The Biden administration is nearing deals with two Pacific Island nations to extend ties that are considered critical to maintaining balance in the U.S.-China rivalry for influence in a region where the Chinese are rapidly expanding their economic, diplomatic and military clout.

This week, the U.S. signed memorandums of understanding with the Marshall Islands and Palau that administration officials hope will pave the way for the quick completion of broader agreements that will govern the islands’ relations with Washington for the next two decades.

Those ties grant the U.S. unique military and other security rights on the islands in return for substantial aid.

The additional demands being made by the Marshall Islands largely center around a call for the United States to come and clean up more of the nuclear waste in the waters surrounding their islands. That’s really not all that unreasonable of a demand, when you consider that one good storm surge during a typhoon can set off all of the Geiger counters on the main island. The worst contamination is around Bikini Atoll, where measurements taken in 2019 showed ration levels higher than in the vicinity of Chernobyl.

We lit off 67 nukes in the Marshall Islands from 1946 to 1958. It’s hard to deny that it’s our responsibility to clean up our mess. Yes, it would take some time and it won’t be cheap to do it. But we managed to somehow find $100 billion of magical money for the sweatpants-wearing autocrat in Ukraine, so we should be able to pick a few more bills off of the money tree in the Rose Garden and take care of this.

The handling of our foreign relations in the Indo-Pacific region under this administration has been dismal. We already lost the Solomon Islands to China by neglecting the relationship. That was a significant hit, considering their strategic location near Australia and New Zealand. We’ve been hearing complaints from other Pacific island nations as well.

Meanwhile, China has made no secret of its plan to wrest control of the entire Indo-Pacific region. And they’ve been shockingly successful thus far. They are showering these smaller countries with money and promises of infrastructure development, including expanding naval ports. In exchange, they will get to enjoy the same ability to establish naval and air bases on the islands as we’ve done in the past.

If we wind up losing the Marshall Islands to China, we’re going to be running out of chunks of land in the Pacific where we can station, resupply, and refuel our navy. These island nations have no doubt been watching how things are going in Ukraine and probably questioning America’s commitment and ability to protect them. They’re located a lot closer to China than to us, so being aggressive with Beijing isn’t really an option. Joe Biden had better make sure he doesn’t drop the ball on this because the stakes are very high.