A new report by a Guam-based security centre has sharpened scrutiny of the growing U.S. military footprint in Palau, a development that coincides with Palau’s leader Whipps making a historic first State visit to New Zealand this week. The Pacific Centre for Island Security’s Micronesia Security Outlook 2025, with the Palau section authored by Jodean Remengesau, director of the Bureau of Agriculture at Palau’s Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and the Environment, warns that accelerated militarisation is outpacing the protections intended under Palau’s agreements with the United States.
Remengesau’s chapter says the Compact of Free Association grants the U.S. broad use of Palauan land, waters and airspace but also obliges the U.S. to meet Palau’s environmental standards. The report alleges those guardrails have been weakened in practice. It cites an incident on Angaur island where U.S. forces cleared 271,807 square metres of land for the first site of a tactical mobile over-the-horizon radar system without obtaining required earthmoving permits or carrying out statutorily mandated community consultations. “The U.S military had missed and fell short of fulfilling its duties and responsibilities under the compact,” Remengesau writes.
The report details further consequences of the rushed clearing. It says shredded tree debris left at the radar site invited an infestation of the invasive coconut rhinoceros beetle and that efforts to remove the material resulted in debris being dumped on residents’ yards. In 2023 Angaur Governor Steven Salii filed suit against Palau’s central government, the Palau Environmental Quality Protection Board, the U.S. government and its military contractors, alleging violations of Palauan environmental laws and compact obligations over the land disturbance.
The publication comes as the U.S. has been rolling out a renegotiated compact package that includes an US$890 million financial pledge to Palau over 20 years, a cycle that began on October 1, 2023, and a separate US$118 million radar project the report says is expected to be operational in 2026. The authors contend that Palau’s heavy fiscal reliance on compact funds and other foreign aid increases the difficulty of balancing sovereign environmental protections with strategic partnership and security commitments.
Remengesau’s chapter also says infrastructure initially presented to Palau as a single, mutually used shoreline radar installation later revealed two separate systems — a point that the report frames as emblematic of a broader lack of clarity and consultation. The think tank, based in Guam, argues that such developments risk eroding Palauans’ say over land use and environmental safeguards at a time of heightened U.S.-China strategic competition across the western Pacific.
Palauan authorities and U.S. defence officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the report’s findings. The publication arrives at a sensitive diplomatic moment: Whipps’s State visit to New Zealand marks a significant step in Palau’s external engagements beyond its treaty relationship with the United States, underscoring how smaller Pacific nations are navigating security partnerships while trying to safeguard local environments, legal obligations and community consent. The new report is likely to add momentum to calls from Palauan leaders and civil society for clearer environmental oversight and fuller public consultation as military projects proceed.
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