Australia is preparing to take up the funding slack for the Pacific's most pressing needs as the US cuts its foreign aid budget.
Crucial food, climate aid and medical programs in the Pacific island nations have been left in limbo after US President Donald Trump's administration announced a 90-day freeze on aid last month as part of its "America First" agenda.
Australian authorities have started auditing which Pacific programs have been put most at risk by the shortfall, with a longer-term view of shouldering some of the financial burden.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong has warned it was "unrealistic" to think Australia – already the Pacific's most sizeable aid donor – could fill the gap left by the Americans completely.
Senior foreign affairs official Jamie Isbister told a government hearing Australia has started considering how it could step up.
"It is not a one-stop review and done," he said.
"The situation is fluid; we have to look at how we adapt our programs in response to that."
The US government confirmed it would slash $US54 billion from its overseas development and foreign aid budgets –slashing around 92 percent of its multi-year contracts with other nations.
Many aid agencies in the South Pacific spent weeks bracing for the impact of the anticipated cuts.
Development agencies say the disaster-prone, physically isolated and climate-challenged tropical Pacific Island states are among the most aid-reliant nations in the world.
The US has, for a number of decades, funded life-saving medicine for tropical disease, combated illegal fishing and better-prepared coastal hamlets for earthquakes and cyclones.
But in a foreign policy snapshot released last month, the Australian government has noted that Trump's policy would ensure the US will be playing a "different role" in global politics.
China, by contrast, continues to spend significant sums in aid, grants and loans targeted at the region.
Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea and the Cook Islands appear to be the biggest beneficiaries of the relationship of China so far.
The Chinese government recently handed the Cook Islands a "one-off grant" of about $NZ4 million following the signing of the joint action plan for its 2025-2030 Comprehensive Strategic Partnership last week.
China spent $US256 million – according to the Sydney-based Lowy Institute think tank – in aid in the region in 2022 alone, a rise of nearly 14 percent from three years earlier.
The US administration spent $US7 million less in the same year.
Australia already provides the most aid to the Pacific of $US12.9 billion since 2008, according to the Lowy Institute.
Australia's foreign policy snapshot, meanwhile, has warned of "turbulent times" ahead.
"Authoritarianism is spreading," Senator Wong wrote in the government papers.
"Some countries are shifting alignment. Institutions we built are being eroded, and rules we wrote are being challenged.
"Australians can see a scale of global challenges unprecedented since World War II."
