Pacific allies should expect the United States to stay engaged, said Jan Van Tol, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington, D.C. “[The Trump administration] is very much going in the same direction and maintaining a strong American presence in the Western Pacific,” Van Tol, a former Navy captain, told Stars and Stripes by phone on Thursday. He noted that both of the Navy’s new America-class amphibious ships would be assigned to the Pacific and predicted that the Marine Corps would continue to build its presence in northern Australia.
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