The Philippines expects that its existing defense arrangements with the United States will survive the Trump administration’s tumultuous early months, Manila’s ambassador to the United States said yesterday.
Speaking at a forum with foreign correspondents in Manila, Jose Manuel Romualdez stated that existing defense arrangements between the two security allies, which include extensive joint military exercises and patrols of the disputed South China Sea, were set to remain in place.
“All of that will remain,” Romualdez said, according to the Associated Press. “I am confident that it will.”
During the forum, the envoy said that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is keen to meet U.S. President Donald Trump and is willing to travel to Washington as soon as he is free for a meeting. A meeting could take place sometime in the next few months, he added.
Many U.S. allies and partners have been unsettled by President Trump’s first two months in office, which have seen his administration enact wrenching changes to the domestic and international status quo. Among these are the imposition of tariffs on close economic partners, the enactment of a sweeping 90-day freeze on foreign aid, and a dramatic shift in the U.S. policy toward the Russia-Ukraine war. In some quarters, these changes – particularly the treatment of Ukraine in the early weeks of the Trump administration – have raised questions about the depth of the U.S. commitment to its Asian allies and partners.
However, the early indications are that the Philippines could survive the turbulent transition to Trump 2.0 relatively unscathed. Secretary of State Marco Rubio met Philippine Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference in Germany on February 14 and “not only reaffirmed U.S. commitment to the United States-Philippines alliance but noted his enthusiasm for building an even more invested and enduring relationship,” a State Department spokesperson said in a statement.
The discussions “included the ongoing bilateral coordination on addressing China’s destabilizing actions in the South China Sea” as well as “increasing economic cooperation on infrastructure, critical minerals, information technology, and energy.”
Then, on February 22, Reuters reported that $336 million in security assistance aimed at modernizing the Philippine military and coast guard had been exempted from the Trump administration’s foreign aid freeze, presumably due to its importance to the U.S. goal of curbing China’s ongoing pattern of aggressive deployments in Philippine-claimed regions of the South China Sea.
Speaking yesterday, Romualdez said that this money was part of the $500 million in security assistance that the Biden administration announced last year, aimed at boosting the country’s external defense capacity in the face of China’s actions. Then U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken described the assistance as a “once-in-a-generation investment.”
“We’re hopeful that the succeeding monies will be made available to us in the next couple of years,” said Romualdez.
Romualdez, a second cousin of Marcos who also served as ambassador in Washington during Trump’s first term in office, added that the Philippines was seeking to import liquefied natural gas from the U.S. as part of a “give and take” on trade – a clear attempt to get on the administration’s good side in light of its persistent trade surplus with the United States. Compared to neighbors like Indonesia, Malaysia, or Vietnam, the Philippines’ surplus is modest, totalling just $4.9 billion last year. However, it rose by 21.8 percent over 2023, according to the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office, and in light of recent events, it would be foolish to assume that this will not attract the attention of the Trump administration.
All of this is a good indication that the administrations in both Manila and Washington are aiming for continuity in their relations. How the relationship develops over the course of the Trump administration depends in large part on the contours of U.S. relations with China.
