MANILA – The Trump administration has deliberately placed the future of America’s transatlantic alliance with Europe in doubt following a series of controversial interventions by top US officials during the latest edition of the Munich Security Conference and this week’s move to support Russia over Ukraine at the United Nations.
However, the second Trump administration’s signals toward transpacific allies have been more reassuring, hinting at a harder US policy line to come on China. Both Japanese and Indian prime ministers have been among the foreign leaders to visit the White House in recent weeks, underscoring the broadly positive momentum under Trump with like-minded Indo-Pacific powers.
As for frontline allies such as the Philippines, it has been consistently reassured by high-level engagements with Trump’s top defense and foreign policy officials. Significantly and notably, Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Eduardo Manalo was among the first counterparts that US Secretary Marco Rubio reached out to in his first days in office.
The two chief diplomats met in person on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, where they reaffirmed their shared commitment to upholding a “rules-based” order in Asia and jointly countering China’s assertive behavior in adjacent waters, including the South China Sea.
Meanwhile, Philippine Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro was among the first foreign top officials to meet US National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, who has broadly echoed Rubio’s views on China as the preeminent threat to America’s global leadership.
Nevertheless, frontline Pacific allies are quietly preparing for “the day after”, namely when Trump’s America becomes a more insular and potentially unhinged superpower.
Trump’s unabashedly transactional approach to foreign policy and his stated admiration for strongmen figures in Beijing and Moscow has given new impetus to Asian allies to build up their own capabilities and strengthen relations among each other under a so-called “multi-alignment” hedging strategy.
All in all, top Philippine officials and leading experts are generally cautiously optimistic about the prospects for continued strong bilateral relations under Trump. US defense aid to the Philippines is expected to be unperturbed by the current freeze of USAID and broader upending of the US federal bureaucracy.
There is still strong congressional bipartisan support for military support for key Asian allies, including a multi-billion defense aid package earmarked for the Philippines over the next five years.
During the US-Philippines special meeting in Munich, the US diplomatic chief “reaffirmed US commitment to the United States-Philippines alliance [and] noted his enthusiasm for building an even more invested and enduring relationship.”
The two sides also discussed ways to enhance “ongoing bilateral coordination on addressing China’s destabilizing actions in the South China Sea, and increasing economic cooperation on infrastructure, critical minerals, information technology, and energy, including through civil nuclear cooperation.”
Moreover, the Philippines’ relatively minimal exports to and trade surplus with America has also placed it in a good position to restart long-stalled bilateral trade negotiations.
Although the protectionist Trump administration has been largely inimical to traditional free trade agreements, it’s reportedly examining sectoral trade deals with a focus on geopolitically sensitive sectors such as semiconductors, precious minerals and even digital trade with trusted allies.
The Philippines has actively positioned itself as a “China-free” supplier of critical minerals and an alternative site for semiconductor production, as neighboring Taiwan faces the real prospect of conflict with China and Japan ramps up its own semiconductor industry.
By and large, Manila’s security alliance and economic relations with the US will remain the bedrock of its foreign policy. For almost a century, Manila’s elite have effectively outsourced their external security needs to Washington.
However, with rising speculation of a US-China grand bargain, what some are already referring to as a “Mar-a-Lago Accord”, the Philippines is also hedging its bets by actively pursuing minilateral cooperation with other like-minded middle powers.
“As a middle power, the rivalry in some ways creates an incentive to reach out to countries in similar situations and to partner with them, which is what we’ve been doing,” Philippine diplomatic chief Manalo told The Financial Times.
In April, Manila will be hosting as many as 14 similarly-minded middle powers as it rapidly strengthens defense ties with Japan, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, South Korea and India.
The Philippine defense chief recently met his Japanese counterpart, General Nakatani, to discuss upgrading defense ties and shared concerns over China.
“The security environment surrounding us is becoming increasingly severe and that it is necessary for the two countries as strategic partners to further enhance defense cooperation and collaboration to maintain peace and stability in [the] Indo-Pacific,” Nakatani told his Filipino counterpart Teodoro.
The newly-ratified Reciprocal Access Agreement (RAA) between Japan and the Philippines has encouraged Manila to pursue similar deals with other like-minded powers, including Canada, New Zealand and France.
Last week, Philippine and French naval forces conducted a historic joint drill in the South China Sea. Shortly after, the French nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the Charles de Gaulle, docked in Subic Bay, the former site of America’s largest overseas naval facility, in a sign of rapidly growing bilateral defense ties with Manila.
“We aim to deepen our cooperation with regional partners with whom we share common values such as upholding international law and ensuring freedom of navigation in shared maritime spaces,” Marie Fontanel, the French ambassador to the Philippines, declared atop the carrier’s flight deck.
At the same time, in a deeper hedge, the Philippines is also signaling its strategic autonomy and reopening communication channels with Beijing by openly discussing its own possible grand strategic bargain with the Asian superpower.
Last month, Philippine President Marcos Jr offered to withdraw the American mid-range Typhon missile system from the northern Philippines in exchange for de-escalating tensions and China’s eventual withdrawal from the Southeast Asian nation’s exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea.
China has complained loudly about the US missile system’s positioning on Philippine soil, which gives Manila the capacity to hit the Chinese mainland and is seen by Beijing as a threat in the context of a possible contingency with the US over Taiwan.
“Let’s make a deal with China—stop claiming our territory, stop harassing our fishermen and let them have a living, stop ramming our boats, stop water-cannoning our people, stop firing lasers at us, and stop your aggressive and coercive behavior, and I’ll return the Typhon missiles,” Marcos said.
“Stop all their aggressive acts and I’ll return everything,” he added, underscoring Manila’s own autonomous decision to leverage its alliance with Washington to deter foreign aggression.
Ultimately, however, the Philippines is investing in its own capabilities, allocating close to $1 billion for acquisitions of modern weapons systems this year, with a focus on modern missile defense systems, drones and fighter jets.
Although not a major power and completely overmatched by China’s military might, Manila is increasingly confident that it can and should pursue a more “multi-aligned” foreign policy that reduces its historical dependence on the US against external threats – a trend that will likely gather pace in the Trump 2.0 era.
Follow Richard Javad Heydarian on X at @RichHeydarian
