OF ALL the Micronesian island areas, other than the Marianas, one could argue the most critical and strategically important to the United States is the Republic of Palau.

The closest to Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam and China, the Palau islands are a buffer between the South China and Philippine seas and the Western Pacific. The country has also maintained a diplomatic relationship with the Republic of China (Taiwan) when most of the world’s independent nations, including the U.S., have given diplomatic recognition to the People’s Republic of China.

The Compact of Free Association between the United States and Palau took years to ratify, mostly because Palau’s constitution contains an anti-nuclear clause prohibiting the visit to its ports by nuclear powered ships. That sticking point required a two-thirds vote for ratification to overcome, which the fledgling republic failed to get several times before the compact finally passed.

Now it appears a review and 15-year renewal of that compact is hung up in the United States Congress, a victim of budget-cutting constraints requiring specific monetary offsets for the $250 million cost. It’s been stalled for two years.

Alarmed that the approval delay is causing some leaders in Palau to question the agreement, five members of Congress with specific ties to or interest in Micronesia have written to President Barack Obama urging his administration to push for congressional approval of the agreement.

Our delegate, Madeleine Bordallo, and her counterpart from the Northern Marianas, Gregorio Kilili Sablan, signed the letter, along with Representatives Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, Michael Honda of California, and Eni Faleomavaega of American Samoa. All are Democrats.

“Continued inaction because of a lack of agreeable offsets will result in some Palauans being enticed by the potential for assistance from nations in Asia and the Middle East that have interests in Palau in conflict with ours,” the letter stated in a report in the Island Times, an online Palau news service. They said it was the Departments of Defense and State which have advised Congress that Palau is “critical” and “vital” to U.S. interests in this region. A failure to fulfill the commitments of the agreement would jeopardize the U.S. defense posture in the Western Pacific.

The countries in Asia and the Middle East aren’t specifically mentioned, but China is right up there. Not Taiwan, which has made several loans and investments in Palau, but mainland China, the PRC, which has lots of cash and stands ready to respond to almost any reasonable request from the independent island nations for infrastructure or economic assistance.

The United States has a lot of money problems, to be sure. And politically, Washington is virtually deadlocked. But letting this important Compact of Free Association between Palau and the United States be squeezed like this is just astonishing, and inexplicable. We need Palau, maybe more than they need us right now. Congress must approve this compact renewal without further delay.