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FILE – Iranian pro-government demonstrators burn the U.S. and Israeli flags as one of them holds a picture of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei during a gathering after announcement of a two-week ceasefire in the war with the Unites States and Israel at the Enqelab-e-Eslami, or Islamic Revolution, Square in Tehran, Iran, April 8, 2026.<\/p>\n
Vahid Salemi\/AP<\/p>\n
FILE – President Donald Trump, left, and Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, shake hands before their meeting at Gimhae International Airport in Busan, South Korea, Oct. 30, 2025.<\/p>\n
Mark Schiefelbein\/AP<\/p>\n
FILE – In this photo provided by the U.S. Navy, the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Halsey (DDG 97) conducts routine underway operations while transiting through the Taiwan Strait, May 8, 2024. (Mass Communication Specialist 3rd class Ismael Martinez\/U.S. Navy via AP, File)<\/p>\n
Mass Communication Specialist 3rd class Ismael Martinez\/AP<\/p>\n
FILE – President Donald Trump speaks with reporters in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, Monday, April 6, 2026, in Washington.<\/p>\n
Julia Demaree Nikhinson\/AP<\/p>\n
WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 In 2011, President Barack Obama declared it was time for America to leave behind the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and \u201cpivot\u201d to Asia to counter the rise of China. Fifteen years later, the U.S. finds itself still at war in the Middle East and has pulled military assets from the Asia-Pacific as it aims to eliminate the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear and missile programs.<\/p>\n
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The demands of the Iran war also caused President Donald Trump to delay by several weeks his highly anticipated trip to China, deepening worries that the U.S. is once again getting distracted at the cost of its strategic interests in Asia, where Beijing seeks to unseat the U.S. as the regional leader.<\/p>\n
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Those skeptical of the U.S. involvement in the Middle East say the war is preventing Trump from adequately preparing for his summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping next month, when economic interests are on the line, and they warn that a failure to focus on Asia and maintain strong deterrence could lead to greater instability, if China should believe the time is ripe to seize the self-governed island of Taiwan.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is precisely the wrong time for the United States to turn away and be sucked into another intractable Middle East conflict,\u201d said Danny Russel, a distinguished fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute. \u201cRebalancing to Asia is highly relevant to America\u2019s national interests, but it has been undercut by many bad decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Others defend the president’s approach, arguing that the forceful steps he is taking elsewhere, including in Venezuela and Iran, serve to counter China globally.<\/p>\n
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\u201cBeijing is the chief sponsor for the adversaries that President Trump is dealing with sequentially, and it\u2019s wise to do this sequentially,\u201d Matt Pottinger, who served as a deputy national security adviser in the first Trump administration, said in a recent podcast.<\/p>\n
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte also said conflicts may not be confined to a single theater, suggesting that China could call upon its \u201cjunior partners\u201d elsewhere to divert U.S. attention if it should move against Taiwan.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost likely it will not be limited, something in the Indo-Pacific to the Indo-Pacific,\u201d Rutte said, speaking Thursday at the Ronald Reagan Institute in Washington. \u201cIt will be a multi-theater issue.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Repercussions in Asia of the Iran war<\/p>\n
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, recently led a bipartisan group of senators to Taiwan, Japan and South Korea, where they heard concerns about the impact of the war on energy costs and about the departure of U.S. military assets, including missile defense systems from South Korea and a rapid-response Marine unit from Japan.<\/p>\n
She sought to reassure them of the U.S. commitment to deterring conflicts in Asia and shoring up regional stability.<\/p>\n
\u201cFailure is not an option,\u201d Shaheen told The Associated Press after returning from Asia. \u201cWe know China has already said they intend to take Taiwan by force if they need to, and they\u2019re on an expedited time schedule. And we also know that what happened in Europe, in the war in Ukraine, in the Middle East is affecting those calculations.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Kurt Campbell, who served as deputy secretary of state in the Biden administration, said he\u2019s worried that the military capabilities that the U.S. had patiently accumulated in the Indo-Pacific region might not return in full even after the Iran war ends.<\/p>\n
The longer the conflict goes on, the more it will pull resources and focus away from Asia, said Zack Cooper, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who studies the U.S. strategy in Asia. He added that future arms sales to the region also will be negatively affected.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe United States has expended substantial numbers of munitions in the Middle East and will have to keep an increased force presence there, some of which has been redirected from Asia,\u201d Cooper said. \u201cMeanwhile, Xi Jinping\u2019s wisdom in preparing a \u2018war time\u2019 economy by stockpiling and adding alternate energy sources has shown itself to be beneficial.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shaheen said the U.S. defense industry will struggle to meet the demand to replenish the weapons stockpile. \u201cWe\u2019re working on a number of strategies to improve that, but at this point, timelines for weapons delivery are slipping,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
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The senator from New Hampshire said she’s encouraged that Taiwan, Japan and South Korea are stepping up their own defense.<\/p>\n
After 15 years and 3 presidents, pivot to Asia remains elusive<\/p>\n
Obama’s strategic rebalance to Asia reflected his understanding that the U.S. must be a player in the Pacific to harness the region\u2019s growth and ensure continued U.S. leadership in the face of China’s rising influence.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter a decade in which we fought two wars that cost us dearly, in blood and treasure, the United States is turning our attention to the vast potential of the Asia-Pacific region,\u201d Obama said in a speech to the Australian Parliament. \u201cSo make no mistake, the tide of war is receding, and America is looking ahead to the future that we must build.\u201d<\/p>\n
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But the strategy was set back when a proposed trade agreement known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership with key U.S. regional partners failed to get through the U.S. Senate. After Trump first took office in 2017, he withdrew the U.S. from the partnership and launched a tariff war with China.<\/p>\n
His Democratic successor, Joe Biden, kept Trump’s tariffs on China and tightened export controls on advanced technology, while strengthening regional alliances to counter China.<\/p>\n
Middle East again grabs US attention<\/p>\n
By the time Trump rolled out his national security strategy in late 2025, the U.S. strategy in Asia had been narrowed to military deterrence in the Taiwan Strait and the First Island Chain, a string of U.S.-aligned islands off China’s coast that restrict its access to the Western Pacific.<\/p>\n
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The national security document says it’s in the economic interest of the U.S. to secure access to advanced chips, which are sourced primarily from Taiwan and are needed to power everything from computers to missiles, and to protect shipping lanes in the South China Sea.<\/p>\n
\u201cHence deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority,\u201d the document says. \u201cWe will build a military capable of denying aggression anywhere in the First Island Chain.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Middle East, it says, should be getting less attention: \u201cAs this administration rescinds or eases restrictive energy policies and American energy production ramps up, America\u2019s historic reason for focusing on the Middle East will recede.”<\/p>\n
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AP writer Stephen Groves contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FILE – Iranian pro-government demonstrators burn the U.S. and Israeli flags as one of them holds a picture…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":579256,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3995,8833,144,254187,12,801,254186,127282,3319,73418,8654,196232,129,3,114137,114138,114135,251766,17570,21,19,22,20,25,24,6132,254188],"class_list":{"0":"post-579255","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-asia","10":"tag-barack-obama","11":"tag-china","12":"tag-danny-russel","13":"tag-donald-trump","14":"tag-iran","15":"tag-iran-war-asia-china-trump-xi","16":"tag-jeanne-shaheen","17":"tag-joe-biden","18":"tag-kurt-campbell","19":"tag-mark-rutte","20":"tag-matt-pottinger","21":"tag-middle-east","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-package-100024-ap-online","24":"tag-package-100373-mc-complete-state-national","25":"tag-product-30598-ap-national-news-report-a-wire","26":"tag-product-31998-ap-online-national-news","27":"tag-ronald-reagan","28":"tag-united-states","29":"tag-united-states-of-america","30":"tag-unitedstates","31":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","32":"tag-us","33":"tag-usa","34":"tag-xi-jinping","35":"tag-zack-cooper"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=579255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/579256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=579255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=579255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}