MANILA – US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s visit to Manila brought a sigh of relief to his Filipino hosts and new cause for military concern in China.
Top Philippine officials and strategists have fretted for months about potential disruptions and possible downgrades in strategic relations amid signs of an isolationist turn in Washington’s foreign policy under Donald Trump.
Last month, Philippine Ambassador to Washington Jose Manuel Romualdez publicly warned that his country should actively prepare for the day when it can no longer rely on its century-old American ally.
The high-profile visit by the US defense chief, who will soon be followed by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, has likely put those strategic doubts somewhat to rest.
During his courtesy call at the Malacañang Palace, Hagseth told Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr that President Trump sends his well wishes and “thinks very fondly of this great country.”
Crucially, Hegseth underscored how both the US president and he “want to express the ironclad commitment we have to the Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) and to the partnership, economically, militarily, which our staffs have worked on diligently for weeks and weeks and months.”
In response, the Filipino leader praised how the visit was “a very strong indication and sends a very strong message of the commitment of both our countries to continue to work together, to maintain the peace in the Indo-Pacific Region within the South China Sea.”
Beyond diplomatic niceties, Hegseth also announced crucial upgrades to bilateral military cooperation to “re-establish deterrence” in light of rising tensions between Manila and Beijing over contested territories in the South China Sea.
In particular, Hagseth announced the deployment of the Navy-Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System (NMESIS), a naval strike missile-equipped unmanned ground vehicle capable of striking targets up to 100 nautical miles away, for this year’s edition of Philippine-US Balikatan exercise.
The US defense chief also announced the deployment of unspecified “highly-capable unmanned surface vehicles” for planned joint drills in the South China Sea. He was likely referring to US-made Maritime Tactical Systems T-12 MANTAS and Devil Ray T-38 drones, which were used by American troops deployed to the Philippines earlier.
Moreover, special forces from both sides are also slated to conduct joint exercises in Batanes, the Philippines’ northernmost province facing Taiwan. Despite the ongoing freeze on US overseas aid, Hagseth also reassured his hosts of the $500-million commitment in foreign military financing this year to help modernize the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).
The two sides also announced further improvements to military facilities used by rotational US forces in the Philippines under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA).
“We will enhance our current EDCA locations and we will make improvements. Mind you, these are Philippine bases of which we have to invest in. We will enhance them for logistical support,” Philippine Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro Jr said during a joint press conference with his American counterpart.
Most crucially, in a move that will deliberately irk China, Hegseth’s visit paved the way for the United States Indo-Pacific Command (Indopacom) to deploy a second mid-range Typhon Missile System battery to the Philippines for upcoming joint exercises.
The current Typhon system is capable of striking strategic targets within a 500 to 2,000-kilometer range, which means it could conceivably hit many of China’s southern military bases. It was first deployed to the Philippines as part of joint exercises last year but was not removed after the drills were completed.
China has strongly protested the highly mobile system’s deployment to the Philippines, claiming that the US is fueling a regional arms race. The Wall Street Journal noted it marked the first time since the Cold War that the US military has deployed a land-based launching system with such a long range outside its borders.
The Lockheed Martin-built system, which has four launchers, a battery operations center, modified trailers and prime movers, boasts a vertical launch system that utilizes Tomahawk and Raytheon-built Standard Missile-6 missiles.
In the event of a conflict in the South China Sea or neighboring Taiwan, the Typhon missile could counter China’s famed “DF” anti-cruise ballistic missile (ASBM) launchers.
Accordingly, the vaunted American medium-range mobile missile system provides a tremendous deterrence effect, especially if deployed on a large scale and across strategic locations in the Philippines.
“This is a welcome development for the Armed Forces of the Philippines. We can say that the more the merrier. So the more assets that we have, the more also that we are able to train more personnel on our part. So we accept this willingly,” AFP spokesperson Colonel Francel Margareth Padilla told reporters after the announcement of the potential deployment of an additional Typhon missile battery as part of joint exercises this year.
“We welcome events like this because this would help our personnel train faster. So we welcome if it will arrive,” Philippine Army spokesperson Colonel Louie Dema-ala said. Last year, Philippine officials welcomed the ‘permanent’ stationing of the weapons system in EDCA facilities and, down the road, even direct acquisition for the AFP.
The US Army’s 3rd MDTF, headquartered in Hawaii, is also slated to soon receive its own Typhon battery, underscoring the growing importance of advanced missile systems in America’s regional defense strategy.
“We’re constantly looking for opportunities to exercise capability like that forward in theater…We learn enormous lessons by bringing capability into the theater,” Col. Michael Rose, the 3rd MDTF commander, told reporters recently.
Crucially, the US official confirmed that the Typhon deployment will undirgird Operation Pathways, a series of year-round exercises aimed at establishing an “integrated deterrence” strategy with Asian allies to counter China’s rising power.
Before Hegseth’s visit, China hoped to steer the second Trump administration away from closer defense cooperation with Manila.
At a press briefing last week, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun warned the Philippines that “nothing good could come out of opening the door to a predator [America]” and that those willing to be pawns in great power competition “will be deserted in the end.”
China’s statements came amid growing doubts about America’s commitment to its frontline Asian allies, including the Philippines. The rise of isolationist figures in the Pentagon, the so-called “restrainers”, has been a great source of concern among America’s traditional Asian allies, not least in Manila.
In an essay months ahead of his appointment as Pentagon’s Southeast Asia chief, Andrew Byers, for instance, advocated for Washington to effectively abandon its Philippine ally in exchange for cooperative schemes with China to de-escalate tensions in the South China Sea.
A top US general also played into anxieties among Filipinos when he announced that the US forces would not conduct a live-fire operation of its the Typhon Missile System during upcoming exercises in the Philippines.
“We are not planning to conduct live-fire in the Philippines right now,” Major General Jeffrey VanAntwerp, deputy chief of staff of operations, plans and training at US Army Pacific, told reporters ahead of Hagseth’s visit. His comments raised fears in Manila of potential retrenchment by the Pentagon in exchange for improved relations with Beijing.
But the US defense chief’s visit and largely dispelled those worries as the Trump administration’s plans for confronting China in the Pacific start to come into clearer view.
Follow Richard Javad Heydarian on X at @RichHeydarian
