Longtime Asia hand Daniel Kritenbrink, who joined consultancy The Asia Group this month after 31 years with the U.S. Foreign Service, tells Nikkei Asia he sees consistency in the Trump administration’s Indo-Pacific policies, despite the daily headlines, and is comforted by the strong start to the U.S.-Japan relationship.
“Every new administration, when they come into office, they want to put their own stamp on the policy,” Kritenbrink, an assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs under President Joe Biden and an ambassador to Vietnam in President Donald Trump’s first term, said in a recent interview. “It’s also not unusual for a new team to come in and be critical of some of the things that have been done previously.”
