MANILA – President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is set to meet with his US counterpart Donald Trump later this month to bolster a longstanding military alliance as China increases its aggression in the South China Sea, nine years after a landmark ruling that invalidated Beijing’s expansive claims in the sea region.
Marcos’s trip, from July 20-22, is to be the Philippine leader’s first visit during the Trump administration to Washington, his country’s staunchest ally. In May 2023, Marcos met with Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden, during whose term US troops were granted expanded access to Philippine bases including in Luzon island near the strait between the Philippines and Taiwan.
Also expected to be discussed is the Trump government’s new decision to impose 20% tariffs on all Philippine exports to the US. The impact of the tariffs on the Philippine economy could be far-reaching, while it could also impact American-based firms that are sourcing from the Southeast Asian nation. Total trade between the two nations exceeded $23 billion, with Philippine firms exporting $14.2 billion worth of goods in 2024.
Specific details of the trip are still being firmed up, although newly-installed Filipino Foreign Secretary Maria Theresa Lazaro gave an account on Monday of how Washington regards its alliance with Manila.
“It is President Trump who invited President Marcos to this meeting,” she said, “the first – if I am correct – among the ASEAN leaders to be invited by President Trump to the White House.” (An internet search indicates she was indeed correct.)
“In fact, it is a working, official visit,” she said, but “the president will be staying at the presidential guest house, the Blair House, so that means something.”
Lazaro said that the Philippines’ position on the South China Sea has always been anchored on the July 12, 2016 arbitral award that had invalidated China’s territorial claims stretching even to the shores of its smaller neighbors.
The Philippines is the only country that had dared to take China to arbitration, and its victory was a watershed moment for others with similar disputes with Beijing.
Key allies the US, Australia, United Kingdom and France had hailed the ruling, calling on China to respect the rule of law. Beijing flatly ignored it, and has since even increased its activities in the contested area, leading to dangerous confrontations between its own coast guard and that of the Philippines.
“The Philippines will always be very strong in our position on the arbitral award,” Lazaro stressed, and she called on China to follow international law even as communications lines remain open to resolve any outbreak of potential confrontations.
On Saturday, her counterpart, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, said the arbitral award clearly stated that China’s claims “have no basis in international law.”
“This decision, legally binding on both the Philippines and China, was a significant milestone and a useful basis for peacefully resolving disputes between parties in the South China Sea,” he said.
Yet, since 2016 Beijing has ignored the ruling and has increasingly shown “aggressive actions” against its neighbors, Rubio said.
“Beijing’s expansive claims directly infringe on the sovereign rights and jurisdictions of Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia, and undermine peace, stability, and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific,” he said, and he again called on Beijing to abide by the ruling and “to cease its dangerous and destabilizing conduct.”
America has repeatedly said that it was prepared to come to Manila’s aid if it invoked a Mutual Defense Treaty, signed in 1951, which calls on both nations to come to each other’s aid in times of foreign aggression. Manila has said that the situation remains manageable in the potentially mineral-rich sea region as constant back-channel negotiations with Beijing continue.
Still, Chinese-flagged maritime vessels, fleets of which double as back-up militias for the China Coast Guard, have continued to converge in the West Philippine Sea, or areas in the South China Sea that are within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.
On Monday, the National Task Force for the West Philippine Sea (NTF-WPS) reported that one of these Chinese maritime vessels with bow number 16868 temporarily ran aground in shallow waters near a reef in the vicinity of Philippine-controlled Pag-asa Island.
The vessel managed to extricate itself from the area and was later accompanied by the China Coast Guard and two other Chinese vessels. While it did not run aground directly on the coral reef, its “anchoring activity caused significant damage,” the Filipinos said.
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Saturday doubled down on its position and said that the arbitral award “is nothing but a piece of waste paper that is illegal, null and void and non-binding.”
“China neither accepts nor recognizes the ‘award,'” its statement stressed, “and will never accept any claim or action arising from the award. China’s territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests in the South China Sea will not be affected by the ‘award’ in any way.”
However, the ministry also stressed that it remained committed to the “peaceful settlement of disputes” and welcomed continuous negotiation and consultations to solve the overlapping claims.
“We urge relevant countries to stop making reference to this illegal ‘award,’ still less making infringement and provocation. This counterproductive move will only end up backfiring,” the ministry said in the statement, referring to the US.
He will be humiliated like little Zelenskyy
Another nation that is not well disposed towards China.