Marcos

WASHINGTON — President Trump welcomed Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Tuesday at the White House, as the two countries are seeking closer security and economic ties in the face of shifting geopolitics in the Indo-Pacific region.

Marcos, who met Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday, is the first Southeast Asian leader to hold talks with Trump in his second term.

Marcos’ three-day visit shows the importance of the alliance between the treaty partners when China is increasingly assertive in the South China Sea, where Manila and Beijing have clashed over the hotly contested Scarborough Shoal.

As the two leaders sat in the Oval Office in front of reporters on Tuesday, Trump said they would be talking about “war and peace” and trade.

“We’re very close to finishing a trade deal, big trade deal, actually,” Trump said.

Marcos spoke warmly of the relationship between their two nations and said, “This has evolved into as important a relationship as is possible to have.”

Trump, as he does in many of his appearances, veered off topic as he fielded questions from reporters.

In response to a question about his Justice Department’s decision to interview Jeffrey Epstein’s former girlfriend, Trump launched into a long answer repeating falsehoods about his loss to Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election and the Russia investigation during his first term, along with comments about targeting his political adversaries, including former President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

“After what they did to me, whether it’s right or wrong, it’s time to go after people,” Trump said, with Marcos sitting nearby.

During the two leaders’ meeting before news cameras, they didn’t reveal details or hang-ups of any possible deal, but Trump called Marcos a “tough negotiator.”

When asked by a reporter how he plans to balance his country’s relationships between the U.S. and China, Marcos said there was no need to balance “because our foreign policy is an independent one.”

“Our strongest partner has always been the United States,” he said.

Washington sees Beijing, the world’s No. 2 economy, as its biggest competitor, and consecutive presidential administrations have sought to shift U.S. military and economic focus to the Asia-Pacific in a bid to counter China. Trump, like others before him, has been distracted by efforts to broker peace in a range of conflicts, from Ukraine to Gaza.

On Tuesday, when asked about the U.S. defense commitment to the Philippines, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Guo Jiakun said: “Whatever cooperation the U.S. and the Philippines have, it should not target or harm any third party, still less incite confrontation and heighten tensions in the region.”

Tariffs also are expected to be on the agenda. Trump has threatened to impose 20% tariffs on Filipino goods on Aug. 1 unless the two sides can strike a deal.

On Sunday, before heading to Washington, Marcos said he intended to tell Trump and his administration “that the Philippines is ready to negotiate a bilateral trade deal that will ensure strong, mutually beneficial and future-oriented collaborations that only the United States and the Philippines will be able to take advantage of,” according to his office.

Manila is open to offering zero tariffs on some U.S. goods to strike a deal with Trump, finance chief Ralph Recto told local journalists.

The White House said ahead of the meeting that Trump would discuss with Marcos the shared commitment to upholding a free, open, prosperous and secure Indo-Pacific.

Before a meeting with Marcos at the Pentagon, Hegseth reiterated America’s commitment to “achieving peace through strength” in the region.

Marcos, whose country is one of the oldest U.S. treaty allies in the Pacific region, told Hegseth that the assurance to come to each other’s mutual defense “continues to be the cornerstone of that relationship, especially when it comes to defense and security cooperation.”

He said the cooperation has deepened since Hegseth’s March visit to Manila, including joint exercises and U.S. support in modernizing the Philippines’ armed forces. Marcos thanked the U.S. for support “that we need in the face of the threats that we, our country, is facing.”

China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan have been involved in long-unresolved territorial conflicts in the South China Sea, a busy shipping passage for global trade.

The Chinese coast guard has repeatedly used water cannons to hit Filipino boats in the South China Sea. China accused those vessels of entering the waters illegally or encroaching on its territory.

Hegseth told a security forum in Singapore in May that China poses a threat and the U.S. is “reorienting toward deterring aggression by Communist China.”

During Marcos’ meeting Monday with Rubio, the two reaffirmed the alliance “to maintain peace and stability” in the region and discussed closer economic ties, including boosting supply chains, State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said.

The U.S. has endeavored to keep communication open with Beijing. Rubio and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met this month on the sidelines of the Assn. of Southeast Asian Nations regional forum in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. They agreed to explore “areas of potential cooperation” and stressed the importance of managing differences.

Tang and Price write for the Associated Press. AP writer Chris Megerian contributed to this report.

July 22 (UPI) — Philippine President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. will meet with President Donald Trump at the White House Tuesday to discuss U.S. tariffs and threats from China.

The first such meeting by an Association of Southeast Asian Nations head of state with Trump since his return to the U.S. presidency, Marcos is expected to utilize his nation’s strong relationship with the United States to improve the trade deal between the two countries.

“The purpose of this visit is to further strengthen the Philippines-United States alliance, to proactively engage the U.S. in all aspects of the relations, and seize opportunities for greater security and economic cooperation,” said Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs Assistant Secretary Raquel Solano in a press release.

The Philippines, one of the many countries who face a tariff hike on Aug. 1, will be subject to a 20% levy as per the letter Trump sent out earlier this month.

“We hope, of course, to arrive at a bilateral trade agreement or a deal on reciprocal trade that is mutually acceptable, mutually beneficial for both our countries,” Solano added.

Marcos’ visit has also focused on defense and security, which was discussed Monday as he visited the Pentagon. U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth met with Marcos, and in a Defense Department press release, it was stated the two “reaffirmed their commitment to the U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty and discussed shared security concerns in the Asia-Pacific region, as well as recent advances in the long-standing U.S.-Philippines alliance.”

“Our storied alliance has never been stronger or more essential than it is today,” said Hegseth in the release. “Together, we remain committed to the mutual defense treaty.”

“And this pact extends to armed attacks on our armed forces, aircraft or public vessels, including our Coast Guard, anywhere in the Pacific, including the South China Sea,” continued Hegseth.

Marcos also met with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who said in an X post Monday that they discussed “how the [United States] and the Philippines are strengthening our ironclad Alliance to advance our shared safety, security, and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific.”

As for any meeting with representatives of the American Filipino community, the press release notes Marcos won’t be able to, due to his tight schedule.

Leaders expected to hold talks on bilateral trade days before US tariffs on Philippine goods set to take effect.

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr will meet United States President Donald Trump this week, hoping Manila’s status as a key Asian ally will secure a more favourable trade deal.

Marcos will be the first Southeast Asian leader to meet Trump during the US leader’s second term.

Trump has already struck trade deals with two of Manila’s regional partners, Vietnam and Indonesia, driving tough bargains in negotiations even with close allies that Washington wants to keep onside in its strategic rivalry with China.

“I expect our discussions to focus on security and defence, of course, but also on trade,” Marcos said in a speech before leaving Manila and arriving in Washington on Sunday, with hopes to reach a deal before August 1, when Trump says he will impose 20 percent tariffs on goods from the Philippines.

“We will see how much progress we can make when it comes to the negotiations with the United States concerning the changes that we would like to institute to alleviate the effects of a very severe tariff schedule on the Philippines,” Marcos said.

The US had a deficit of nearly $5bn with the Philippines last year on bilateral goods trade of $23.5bn.

Trump this month raised the threatened “reciprocal” tariffs on imports from the Philippines to 20 percent from 17 percent threatened in April.

Although US allies in Asia such as Japan and South Korea have yet to strike trade deals with Trump, Gregory Poling, a Southeast Asia expert at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Marcos might be able to do better than Vietnam, with its agreement of a 20 percent baseline tariff on its goods, and Indonesia at 19 percent.

“I wouldn’t be surprised to see an announcement of a deal with the Philippines at a lower rate than those two,” Poling told the Reuters news agency.

Marcos visited the Pentagon on Monday morning for talks with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and will see Secretary of State Marco Rubio later in the day, before meeting Trump at the White House on Tuesday.

He will also meet US business leaders investing in the Philippines.

Philippine officials say Marcos’s focus will be on economic cooperation and Manila’s concerns about Trump’s tariffs.

They say he will stress that Manila must become economically stronger if it is to serve as a truly robust US partner in the Asia Pacific.

Philippine Assistant Foreign Secretary Raquel Solano said last week that trade officials have been working with US counterparts seeking to seal a “mutually acceptable and mutually beneficial” deal for both countries.

China tensions

Trump and Marcos will also discuss defence and security, and Solano said the Philippine president would be looking to further strengthen the longstanding defence alliance.

Philippine media quoted Manila’s ambassador to Washington, Jose Manuel Romualdez, as saying on Sunday that the visit would see a reaffirmation of the seven-decade-old mutual defence treaty and “discussions on how we can continue to cooperate with the United States, our major ally”.

With the Philippines facing intense pressure from China in the contested South China Sea, Marcos has pivoted closer to the US, expanding access to Philippine military bases amid China’s threats towards Taiwan, the democratically governed island claimed by Beijing.

The US and the Philippines hold dozens of annual exercises, which have included training with the US Typhon missile system, and more recently, with the NMESIS antiship missile system, angering China.

Manila and the US have closely aligned their views on China, Poling said, and it was notable that Rubio and Hegseth made sure their Philippine counterparts were the first Southeast Asian officials they met.

Poling said Trump also seemed to have a certain warmth towards Marcos, based on their phone call after Trump’s re-election.