Harris holds steady on Southeast Asia trip as crises loom

HONOLULU — In Singapore, in between a foreign policy speech and a roundtable talk about supply chain issues, Vice President Kamala Harris stopped to smell the flowers. “They delivered key messages to our partners and showed both continuity and a future for the relationships, by the fact that they had steady nerves and they continued with the trip, even despite these challenges.” Amid the withdrawal from Afghanistan, one of Harris’ top tasks for the trip was to reassure U.S. allies that America can be trusted to stand by its commitments. Chris Martin, deputy executive director of GOP opposition research group America Rising, said on Twitter that “every assignment Kamala Harris has touched as VP has failed miserably,” including her latest efforts to reassure U.S. allies. On confronting China — the trickiest diplomatic issue for Harris during the trip — the vice president struck a balance in delivering a rebuke of what she called China’s “bullying” in the South China Sea while also offering a more constructive vision for the U.S. relationship with Singapore and Vietnam. When you take that out of the equation, it just becomes harder.” Gregory Poling, a senior fellow for Southeast Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that while the pandemic complicated Harris’ trip, it also created opportunities to show the U.S. commitment to the region.