Pacific Partnership 2025 strengthened bonds between the United States and Tonga through joint medical engagements, infrastructure improvements, and knowledge exchanges, fostering deeper understanding and cooperation between the two nations.

“The success of Pacific Partnership 2025 is a testament to the strength of the U.S.-Tonga partnership,” said Capt. Mark B. Stefanik, mission commander of Pacific Partnership 2025. “The experiences and relationships forged during this mission will serve as a foundation for continued collaboration and mutual support. We deeply appreciate the relationships formed during our time in the Kingdom of Tonga and the U.S. Navy looks forward to working with Tonga long into the future to address shared challenges and opportunities.”

During their stop in the Kingdom of Tonga, the Pacific Partnership medical team, consisting of U.S. Navy, Army, Public Health Service and Tongan Ministry of Health personnel, conducted over 30 community health engagements in the fields of optometry, clinical pharmacy, veterinary medicine, public health, nursing, and nutrition. The joint U.S. and Tongan optometry team engagements spanned eight days and distributed 350 prescription eyeglasses to local patients at Vaiola Hospital and Mu’a Health Center. The nutrition and dietetic component of the Pacific Partnership 2025 medical team reviewed and revised the Vaiola Hospital patient menu, training more than 25 food service attendants in food preparation, handling and storage as well as the development of tailored meals for hospital patients. The public health division of Pacific Partnership 2025 assisted and trained staff from the Ministry of Health on how to use a Palintest kit to collect and analyze the quality of water from six different public water source sites in order to identify and address several health concerns posed by harmful contaminants.

“I’m proud of the team supporting Pacific Partnership 2025: Tongans, Americans, and our other partners,” said Marcus R. Jackson, Chargé d'affaires, a.i. of United States Embassy Nukuʻalofa. “From engineering workshops to community health fairs, it has been inspiring to see Tongans and Americans working closely together. The friendship between Tonga and the United States is strong and long standing, and exercises like Pacific Partnership make that relationship practical.”

Sailors assigned to Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 4 (NMCB 4) and Tongan engineers forged the Pacific Partnership 2025 engineering team to create standard operating procedure manuals for the operation, maintenance and preservation of two Mobile Utilities Support Equipment generators, powering several health facilities at the Vaiola Hospital. Also at Vaiola Hospital, the NMCB 4 Sailors constructed and installed four storage shelves into the clinical pharmacy facility, contributing to a better organized and efficient medication filing system. The engineering team also worked together to break ground on the two-month long renovation of a technical classroom building located on the campus of Tonga College ‘Atele, where local students learn and practice their technical and mechanical engineering trades.

Now in its 21st iteration, Pacific Partnership series is the largest annual multinational humanitarian assistance and disaster management preparedness mission conducted in the Indo-Pacific. Pacific Partnership works collaboratively with host and partner nations to enhance regional interoperability and disaster response capabilities, increase security and stability in the region, and foster new and enduring friendships in the Indo-Pacific.