White House Press Gaggle With NSA Jake Sullivan Underway Shortly

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan are shortly due to brief the press aboard Air Force One en route to Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

• Livestream: https://www.whitehouse.gov/live/
• Biden will be in Cambodia for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and East Asia Summits where he will hold bilateral meetings with South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Indonesian President Joko Widodo, and Philippines President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos.
• Biden will seek to reassure regional leaders that the US is committed to challenging China in the region.
• The question again will be how receptive Indo-Pacific leaders will be to Biden's regional initiatives, including the Indo-PacificEconomic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF), without being provided access to US markets.
• Asia Times: "...the Biden administration sorely lacks a coherent and tangible regional economic strategy."
• Emily Benson and Aidan Arasasingham at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) write, “Washington’s unwillingness to negotiate market access brings into question its ability to offer serious concessions and highlights the domestic political constraints it faces in negotiating free trade agreements.”