The ability of the country’s democratic institutions to overcome the challenges associated with last year’s constitutional crisis has been praised by the U.S. Ambassador to Samoa.

Ambassador Tom Udall, when asked by the Samoa Observer how committed his country is to boosting ties with Samoa amid China’s widening influence, said all countries in the Indo-Pacific region share the same values and Samoa’s ability to overcome a constitutional crisis last year showed how it re-emerged on the world scene stronger.

"The way that I look at it is that we have all of the countries in the Indo-Pacific region that share values,” he said on Thursday after the presentation of his credentials ceremony to Samoa’s Head of State.

"But just think for a minute how important those values are – Samoa just showed how vital and strong its democracy was in the election it had. 

“We share those values and we share the values that flow from democracies about freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and one thing I would say to the young people both in Samoa and the United States, and around the world is that democracy's not a spectator sport, democracy requires engagement and so each generation has to make that engagement, and make that commitment, and that's what I think Samoa has done, and shown to the people of Samoa and the world that you could hit some tough spots in democracy but you come out of it and you're stronger.”

Mr Udall then congratulated the Samoa Government while emphasising that his comments were not in any way interfering with the Government.

"And so I congratulate your government on that and it's not meant to be said in any way that we in any way want to interfere with the Government and Samoa,” he said.

“Our objective and my objective as a diplomat is to work with Samoa as equal partners to move forward together on the shared values and issues that we really care about."

America will pursue five objectives unveiled recently in the Indo-Pacific Strategy, each in concert with their allies and partners, as well as regional institutions which are: advance and free and open Indo-Pacific; build connections within and beyond the region; drive regional prosperity; bolster Indo-Pacific security; and build regional resilience to traditional threats.

"I think the new strategy that's been laid out and I hope everybody that's watching including the press here takes a good hard look at that because I think [...] many of the values, many of the issues that are there have been going on for a long time through a number of Presidents.

“And so we have to be clear that these ties are something aren't just brand new, they are something that are long standing, that we've cared about and that we're moving forward with.

“I'm just very proud of our Secretary of State for coming to the region and asking all the countries, I believe are representatives from the Samoan Government, to be a part of the discussion about free and open Indo-Pacific, about climate change and about how we all move forward together.

"And so those things are tremendously important, I think also when we talk about free and open Pacific, we need to talk about resilience, we need to talk about prosperity, we need to talk about how we're connected and how we're going to cooperate and be connected together and then security is absolutely key, how individual nations can be secure and how they can work on security together.”