Fretful of Trump, Philippines floats missile compromise with China

The Philippines’ high-stakes gamble of offering to remove US medium-range missiles in exchange for China’s restraint in contested waterways puts Manila at the center of a geopolitical storm where shifting alliances and great-power pragmatism could make or break its national interests.

Last month, multiple media outlets reported that Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr had proposed a quid pro quo deal to China to remove the US Typhon missile system from Philippine territory if China ceased its aggression in the South China Sea.

Marcos Jr, responding to Chinese demands for the missile system’s withdrawal, highlighted China’s missile capabilities, emphasizing that China’s arsenal far surpasses the Philippines’.

He asserted that if China halts its territorial claims, harassment of Philippine fishermen and confrontations at sea—including ramming, water cannoning and laser targeting Philippine vessels—he would return the Typhon missiles to the US.

The Philippines will train with the US Typhon missile system this month before joint drills. The training aims to familiarize a new platoon from the Philippine Army Artillery Regiment with the system.

The US deployed the Typhon system in 2024 during joint military exercises, but it has remained in the Philippines amid escalating tensions with China. Recently relocated to an undisclosed location, the system includes Tomahawk and Standard Missile-6 weapons capable of striking parts of mainland China.

China has condemned its presence and accused the Philippines of inciting regional instability and escalating an arms race. Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro dismissed China’s objections, calling them interference in domestic affairs.

Marcos Jr’s bold stance underscores the Philippines’ balancing act between asserting sovereignty and maintaining its alliance with the US. Whether China will respond constructively to Marcos’ offer is uncertain.

The indefinite deployment of the US Typhon missile system in the Philippines has placed the country at the center of a two-level political game—one involving territorial disputes with China and the other shaped by internal political rivalries.

While the US frames the deployment as part of its missile wall containment strategy against China, China sees it as a destabilizing move in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait.

Meanwhile, the Marcos-Duterte feud threatens to upend the Philippines’ pro-US tilt. China is allegedly backing the Duterte political clan, led by former President Rodrigo Duterte and sustained by Vice President Sara Duterte, to weaken Marcos Jr’s administration, potentially jeopardizing future US military initiatives in the country.

Despite Marcos Jr’s recent bold rhetoric against China, such strong statements may only mask fears of US abandonment under the second Trump administration.

Philippine defense officials and foreign policy experts are waiting with bated breath for the Trump administration’s position on China, as the Philippines may lose US$500 million in military aid. Their stances range from increasing defense self-reliance, a wait-and-see approach and diversifying partnerships to a pessimistic view of the US selling out the Philippines to China.

The Trump administration’s order to pause US foreign aid for 90 days, pending a review to determine whether such initiatives make the US safer, stronger, and prosperous, presents a substantial challenge for continued US aid to the Philippines.

The Philippines’ poor economic performance raises doubts about whether it can fund big-ticket military purchases such as multi-role fighters (MRF) or submarines, which have been on its wish list for decades, or even fulfill its ambitious plans to buy the US Typhon missile system.

The Philippines’ rationale behind declaring its plans to buy Typhon may be to increase its strategic value to Trump-affiliated players in the US defense-industrial base, thereby keeping the Philippines on the US’ radar. However, the US typically restricts the sale of the multimillion-dollar-per-unit Tomahawk and Standard Missile-6 to higher-tier allies such as the UK, Japan and Australia.

It is also doubtful that the Philippines’ alternative defense partners, such as Japan and Australia, have the diplomatic, economic and military clout, much less the willingness, to confront China over the Philippines’ South China Sea claims.

While US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has reassured the Philippines of its “ironclad” commitment to the US-Philippines 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT), the statement sounds more like boilerplate to assuage Philippine fears of abandonment while keeping the US non-committal about openly supporting the latter’s South China Sea position.

In a December 2021 commentary for Cato Institute, Doug Bradlow argues that the Philippines doesn’t matter to the defense of the US itself and calls out the Philippines’ attempts to stretch US security guarantees to cover disputed features in the South China Sea that are of marginal value to US strategic interests.

Countering Bradlow’s views, Raymond Powell in the South China Morning Post (SCMP) argues for continued US military aid to the Philippines, as the latter is a treaty ally and an essential part of US defenses in the First Island Chain to contain China.

However, Bradlow points out that while US access to Philippine bases is always useful, no Philippine president would allow the use of the country’s territory for US military operations against China, except in the instance of an improbable attack on the Philippine archipelago.

Bradlow says that if the Philippines did, it would make it a permanent enemy of geographically proximal China. He also mentions the Philippines’ military weakness and political unreliability as disincentives for US support.

US President Donald Trump’s softer tone on China compared to his first term may indicate that he has become more pragmatic and focused on maintaining US supremacy while avoiding a confrontation with the rival superpower.

In line with the Trump administration’s transactional and pragmatic stance, Andrew Byers and J Tyler mention in a December 2024 article in the peer-reviewed journal Survival that the US could begin a “cooperation spiral” with China by reducing its military forces and weapons in the Philippines in exchange for the China Coast Guard (CCG) decreasing operations near contested Philippine territories in the South China Sea.

Putting that possible move into a strategic context, Andreas Kluth mentions in an opinion piece for Bloomberg that Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump all share an imperialistic streak driven by “might makes right” logic instead of clashing ideologies.

Kluth says that if the US, China and Russia disagree on dividing the world into spheres of influence as done at the 1945 Yalta Conference, it will inevitably lead to war and undoubtedly doom smaller countries such as the Philippines caught in the middle.

In such a world, the US may sell out the Philippines, realizing that extending its sphere of influence to China’s doorstep is not worth a major war—especially not over the Philippines, which is arguably of little strategic value to US interests despite sharing certain democratic values.

Should that happen, the Philippines could revert to its Duterte administration-era appeasement stance toward China at the expense of its territorial integrity, writes Jenny Balboa for East Asia Forum.

Balboa notes that such a scenario could ruin Marcos Jr’s political future and dynasty. She mentions that Marcos Jr’s challenge is to convince Trump that the US and Trump himself will benefit from supporting the Philippines and standing up to China.