3. DRIVE INDO-PACIFIC PROSPERITY
The prosperity of everyday Americans is linked to the Indo-Pacific. We will put forward an innovative new framework to equip our economies for this moment. Our efforts are built on a strong foundation of close economic integration. Two-way trade between the United States and the region totaled $1.75 trillion in 2020, and it supports more than five million Indo-Pacific jobs. Foreign direct investment from the United States totaled more than $969 billion in 2020 and has nearly doubled in the last decade. The United States remains the number-one investment partner in ASEAN member countries—investing more than Southeast Asia’s next three investment partners combined. And the United States is the primary exporter of services to the region, which, in turn, fuels regional growth.
The COVID-19 pandemic has made clear the need for a recovery that promotes broad-based economic growth. That requires investments to encourage innovation, strengthen economic competitiveness, produce good-paying jobs, rebuild supply chains, and expand economic opportunities for middle-class families: 1.5 billion people in the Indo-Pacific will join the global middle class in this decade.
Alongside our partners, the United States will put forward an Indo-Pacific economic framework—a multilateral partnership for the 21st century. This economic framework will help our economies to harness rapid technological transformation, including in the digital economy, and adapt to the coming energy and climate transition. The United States will work with partners to ensure that citizens on both sides of the Pacific reap the benefits of these historic economic changes, while deepening our integration. We will develop new approaches to trade that meet high labor and environmental standards and will govern our digital economies and cross-border data flows according to open principles, including through a new digital-economy framework. We will work with our partners to advance resilient and secure supply chains that are diverse, open, and predictable, while removing barriers and improving transparency and information-sharing. We will make shared investments in decarbonization and clean energy, and work in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) to promote free, fair, and open trade and investment, during our host year, in 2023, and beyond.
We will also redouble our commitment to helping Indo-Pacific partners close the region’s infrastructure gap. Through our Build Back Better World initiative with G7 partners, we will equip the emerging economies of
