Updated May 20, 201919, 2020
U.S.-Singapore Relations
Overview
Though geographically only about three times the size of
Washington, DC, and with a population of about 5.9
million, the city-state of Singapore exerts economic and
diplomatic influence on par with much larger countries. Its
stable government, strong economic performance, educated
citizenry, and strategic position along key shipping lanes
afford it a large role in regional and global affairs. For the
United States, Singapore has been a partner in both trade
and security initiatives and an advocate of a strong U.S. role
in the Asia-Pacific region. At the same time, Singapore’s
leaders have aimed to maintain close relations with China,
and to strike a balance among the region’s powers.
The United States and Singapore have extensive trade and
investment ties. The U.S.-Singapore Free Trade Agreement
(FTA), which went into effect in January 2004, was the first
U.S. bilateral FTA with an Asian country. Since then, trade
between the two countries has almost doubled. In 2018,
U.S.-Singapore trade totaled about $60 billion in goods, and
Singapore was the 12th largest goods export market for the
United States. That same year, the U.S. trade surplus with
Singapore amounted to $5.9 billion. Singapore is a party to
the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for TransPacific Trade Partnership (CPTPP), an 11-nation agreement
that evolved from the U.S.-led Trans-Pacific Partnership
(TPP), from which the United States withdrew in 2017.
Although it is not a U.S. treaty ally, Singapore is one of the
strongest U.S. security partners in the region. A formal
strategic partnership agreement allows the United States to
access Singaporean military facilities, and provides the
basis for U.S.-Singapore cooperation on issues relating to
counterterrorism, counter-proliferation, and joint military
exercises and facilitates
cooperation on issues relating to counterterrorism, counterproliferation, and joint military exercises.
Singapore and COVID-19 Pandemic
Singapore was one of the first nations outside China to
report COVID-19 cases, with its first infection reported on
January 23. Public health experts praised Singapore’s rapid
early actions, including extensive monitoring of cases and
their contacts, temperature checks at building entrances,
and clear public messaging. However, Singapore
experienced a significant “second wave” of cases, centered
in the crowded quarters where migrant workers live, which
prompted authorities to close schools and most businesses,
steps that it had avoided earlier. As the cases stabilized in
early May, Singapore was poised to open up parts of its
economy.
Singapore’s approach to controlling the outbreak included
employing the armed forces to make up to 2,000 visits per
day to search for carriers. As new cases were reported,
Singapore health officials conducted detailed interviews of
affected individuals, requiring those who have come into
contact with them to quarantine themselves. The Health
Ministry developed the capacity to test more than 8,000
individuals a day. Individuals found to have misled health
officials are subject to criminal penalties including fines
and the threat of imprisonment. The Health Ministry issues
updates on individual cases and the numbers of people
under care or protective quarantine, including details of
where each individual who has tested positive lives.
Singapore’s fatality rate for the disease was also identified
as among the lowest of affected countries.
Singapore Politics
Singapore’s People’s Action Party (PAP) has won every
general election since the end of the British colonial era in
1959. Even today, the PAP enjoys, and it continues to enjoy widespread support. It
The
PAP has delivered consistent economic growth, and benefited
benefited from the country’s fragmented opposition and proincumbent
pro-incumbent electoral procedures. In recent years, some
observers have pointed to changes in the political and social
environment that may portend more political pluralism,
including generational changes and an increasingly
international outlook among many Singaporeans. However,
in the most recent general
election, held in 2015, the PAP
won 83 of 89 parliamentary seats. It tallied 69.9% of the
popular vote, up from an all-time low of 60.1% in 2011. In
Singapore, voting
seats. Voting is compulsory, and 93.7% of eligible
voters voters
cast ballots in the 2015 election. The government must hold
the next elections by January 2021.
Increasingly, PAP officials are preparing for a change in the
party’s leadership. In 2015, the country’s long-time leader
Lee Kuan Yew died. He was Singapore’s first prime
minister, serving from 1959 until 1990. He was widely
widely heralded as the
architect of Singapore’s success and its
rapid economic development, although much of the
development. Much of the country’s authoritarian politics
derived from Lee’s efforts
to constrain the political
opposition. Lee’s eldest son, Lee
Hsien Loong, is the
country’s current prime minister. He
has been, in office since 2004, but he has indicated that he
wants to step down in the next few years. In November
. In
November 2018, the PAP announced a new party
leadership slate, and
a group of younger party leaders, known as the 4G (fourth
generation) group, chose chose
Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat
as its head, indicating
that he is likely to succeed Lee as
Prime Minister. The government must hold elections by
January 2021, but many expect polls could be held as early
as this year. Prime Minister.
Singapore’s leaders have acknowledged a “contract” with
the Singaporean people, under which some individual rights
are curtailed in the interest of maintaining a stable,
prosperous society. (In the 1960s, intercommunal violence,
primarily between ethnic Chinese and Malays, racked the
country.) However, PAP leaders speak of the
need to
reform the party to respond to the public’s
concerns, which
appear to focus on rising living costs,
wealth disparities,
public health, and immigration. Some
observers praise Singapore’s
pragmatism, noting its
sustained economic growth and high
standards of living. Yet, others
Others criticize the government’s
paternalistic approach,
saying that it stunts creativity and
entrepreneurship and
contributes to rising income
inequality.
The United States has criticized some aspects of
Singapore’s political system. The U.S. State Department’s
2018 Human Rights Report mentioned “preventive
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detention by government authorities under various laws that
dispense with regular judicial due process; monitoring
private electronic or telephone communications without a
warrant; significant restrictions on the press and online,
including the use of defamation laws to discourage
criticism; [and] laws and regulations significantly limiting
the right of peaceful assembly and freedom of association.”
In the past, the party has used defamation suits and libel
damages to bankrupt opposition politicians.
U.S.-Singapore Defense Cooperation
The “Strategic Framework Agreement” formalizes the
bilateral security relationship between the United States and
Singapore. The agreement, which was signed in 2005 and is
the first of its kind with a non-U.S. ally since the Cold War,
builds on the U.S. strategy of “places-not-bases”—a
concept that aims to provide the U.S. military with access to
foreign facilities on a largely rotational basis, thereby
avoiding sensitive sovereignty issues. In 2015, the United
States and Singapore agreed to an “enhanced” cooperation
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U.S.-Singapore Relations
agreement, and the United States began deploying
surveillance aircraft to Singapore around the same time.
Singapore is a substantial market for U.S. military goods,
and it has indicated interest in procuring four F-35 jets.
The U.S. Navy maintains a logistical command unit—
Commander, Logistics Group Western Pacific—in
Singapore that coordinates warship deployments and
logistics in the region. Singapore’s Changi Naval Base is
one of the few facilities in the world that can accommodate
a U.S. aircraft carrier, and Singapore-stationed littoral
combat ships (LCSs) have performed patrols in the South
China Sea, participated in exercises with other countries,
and delivered relief supplies to the Philippines after
Typhoon Haiyanprovided disaster relief.
In November 2014, Singapore became the first Southeast
Asia country to join the U.S.-led Global Coalition to
Counter the Islamic State (IS). Singaporean troops have
served in non-combat roles at U.S. Central Command and
at the Combined Joint Task Force’s headquarters. The
country also has contributed an air-to-air refueling tanker,
an imagery analysis unit, and a medical team to the anti-IS
effort. Singapore also made small contributions to allied
efforts in both Iraq conflicts and Afghanistan, and has
contributed to numerous U.N. peacekeeping operations,
including in Cambodia, Timor-Leste, and Nepal.
Law Enforcement Cooperation
The United States and Singapore engage in ongoing law
enforcement cooperation. According to some, such
cooperation is crucial, given that Singapore is the busiest
transshipment hub in the world, and is a transit point for
millions of air passengers, including suspected terrorists
from neighboring countries. In the past, some U.S. officials
have expressed concerns about Singapore’s willingness to
cooperate, but the State Department’s most recent Country
Report on Terrorism states that “Singapore [has been] a
committed, active, and effective counterterrorism partner.”.
Singapore is part of the U.S.-led Container Security
Initiative (CSI), and in 2014, the U.S. Customs and Border
Protection agency signed three agreements with the
country, providing a legal framework for the two countries’
customs authorities to work together to counter trafficking,
proliferation, and terrorist-related activitiesterrorism.
Singapore Economy and U.S. Trade
Relations
Singapore’s GDP per capita (PPP) is one of the world’s
highest at $94,100. The country’s role as a regional entrepot
means that its economy depends heavily on trade.
Singapore’s annual trade volumes are more than three times
the country’s annual GDP, and in 2018, its port handled
about 630 million tons of cargo. Singapore exports
consumer electronics, information technology products, and
pharmaceuticals. It also is one of the top three oil-refining
centers in the world, even though it has no natural resources
of its own. China is Singapore’s largest trading partner, but
the United States is its biggest foreign investor. In 2017, the
stock of U.S. foreign direct investment (FDI) in Singapore
totaled $274 billion, accounting for around 80% of total
U.S. investment in Southeast Asia.
Previously
Between 2008 and 2016, the Trans-Pacific Partnership
(TPP) was the
primary trade initiative between the United
States and
Singapore. The United States withdrew from the agreement
agreement in January 2017, but Singapore, along with 10 other
other countries, moved ahead with the revised CPTPP. In March
2017, Prime Minister Lee said that the U.S. withdrawal “put
a dent in the degree to which people can be confident in
America’s policies.”
As a trade-dependent economy, Singapore has pursued a
wide range of trade agreements. It has concluded 22
bilateral and
regional free trade agreements (FTAs),
including the U.S.-Singapore FTA (2003) and the CPTPP, and is
pursuing pursuing
several more, including the Regional
Comprehensive Comprehensive
Economic Partnership (RCEP), which
involves 16 Asian
nations. Singapore faces relatively few
few obstacles when conducting
trade negotiations. It has a
mature, globalized economy,
virtually no agricultural
sector, and its manufacturing
industry is focused on
specialized products such as high-endhighend electronics and
pharmaceuticals. The country’s leaders, however, are
concerned
have shown concern about the impact that Sino-U.S.-trade disputes
disputes may have on the Singapore economy.
Singapore’s Regional Role
Singapore wasis a founding member of the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the 10-member
regional forum thata regional forum that
aims to prevent regional disputes and encourage
cooperation, and helps Southeast Asia’s mostly small
countries influence regional diplomacy, particularly vis-àvis China. (. ASEAN’s members
are Brunei, Burma,
Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia,
the Philippines,
Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.)
Singapore has encouraged greater U.S. engagement in Asia,
but it has warned that efforts to “contain” China’s rise
would be counterproductive. In a May 2019 speech in
Washington DC, Singapore Foreign Minister Vivian
Balakrishnan said “viewing China purely as an adversary to
be contained will not work in the long term, given the entire
spectrum of issues that will require cooperation between the
U.S. and China.”warned that efforts to “contain” China’s rise are
counterproductive. Of late, Singapore has worked to smooth
smooth its ties with China—perhaps, at least partly as a hedge
against against
possible U.S. disengagement from the region. That
being said, in However, in
2016, Singapore supported an international
tribunal’s ruling
against China’s claims in the South China
Sea (SCS). (Singapore is a non-claimant in the SCS dispute,
and has characterized its stance as neutral.) Singapore has a
Sea. Singapore
has a strong relationship with Taiwan, but it nonethelessalso adheres
to to
a one-China policy.
Singapore also Singapore portrays itself as a useful
intermediary,
providing a bridge to developing countries in
fora like
international climate negotiations. In June 2018, Singapore
hosted the first meeting between President Trump and
North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-Un.
Ben Dolven,
Emma Chanlett-Avery,
Ben Dolven, Specialist in Asian Affairs
Emma Chanlett-Avery, Specialist in Asian Affairs
IF10228
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U.S.-Singapore Relations
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