Lini, an Anglican pastor, forged the doctrine of Melanesian socialism, and based his government's foreign policy on non-alignment and on support for independence movements around the world – from faraway Western Sahara to neighbouring New Caledonia.

The country joined the Non-Aligned Movement in 1983 and established official diplomatic relations with Cuba (1983) and the Soviet Union (June 1986) before doing the same with the United States (September 1986).

Barak Sopé added that "the United States were wrong, they behaved as terrorists and aggressors", and that "the CIA is involved in all sorts of similar activities.

Between 1977 and 1987, Vanuatu received just under $3 million from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), including projects focusing on assisting the transition to indigenous plantation management.

He "reversed [the country's] unequivocal support for the Kanak National Liberation Front in New Caledonia, its systematic enmity towards France, its flirting with radical regimes, and its openly anti-American nuclear-free Pacific stance."

The Millennium Challenge Program is expected to increase average income per capita by 15% within five years and directly impact the lives of more than 65,000 of the rural poor in Vanuatu.

In 2023, the United States announced plans to open up an embassy in Vanuatu, as part of a larger regional push to strengthen ties in the Pacific.

[6] Prior to Vanuatu's independence, the United States maintained a large naval base in Luganville, in the then-New Hebrides, during World War II, which housed approximately 250,000 soldiers.