Philippines' Marcos to meet Trump seeking 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.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Al Jazeera
9 minutes ago
- Al Jazeera
US judge blocks Trump's effort to defund reproductive health organisation
A United States federal judge has ruled against President Donald Trump's effort to defund Planned Parenthood, a reproductive health services organisation that has long attracted conservative ire. In a decision on Monday, US District Judge Indira Talwani ruled that Planned Parenthood clinics must continue to receive reimbursements for Medicaid, a government health programme for the poor. 'Patients are likely to suffer adverse health consequences where care is disrupted or unavailable,' Talwani stated in her Monday order. 'In particular, restricting Members' ability to provide healthcare services threatens an increase in unintended pregnancies and attendant complications because of reduced access to effective contraceptives, and an increase in undiagnosed and untreated STIs.' Planned Parenthood had filed a lawsuit over a provision in a recent Republican tax and spending bill that cut off Medicaid payments for one year to abortion providers who received more than $800,000 from Medicaid in 2023. The US already prevents federal funds from paying for abortion services, and organisations that provide abortions, such as Planned Parenthood, also offer reproductive health services such as contraception, pregnancy tests and STD testing. The organisation estimated that the provision in the bill could result in the closure of 200 clinics across 24 states, with more than one million patients at risk of losing coverage. Conservative politicians have long sought to restrict access to federal funds for Planned Parenthood, the country's largest abortion provider, as part of a larger push to roll back access to reproductive health services. Since the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, a previous 1973 decision that had established abortion as a constitutional right, in June 2022, numerous Republican-led states have passed new restrictions on abortion or banned it entirely. 'Today, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction, blocking the provision in the reconciliation law that unconstitutionally 'defunds' Planned Parenthood from going back into effect,' Planned Parenthood said in a statement on Monday. 'This means that patients can use Medicaid at Planned Parenthood health centers, and Planned Parenthood health centers can receive reimbursements for the essential services they provide.'
Al Jazeera
3 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
Trump gives Russia 10 or 12 days to end war on Ukraine
United States President Donald Trump has set a new deadline of 10 or 12 days for Russia to end its war in Ukraine, underscoring his frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin for prolonging the conflict. Speaking in Scotland, where he is holding meetings with European leaders and playing golf, Trump on Monday said he was disappointed in Putin and shortened a 50-day deadline he had set this month. 'I'm going to make a new deadline of about … 10 or 12 days from today,' Trump told reporters during a meeting with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. 'There's no reason in waiting. … We just don't see any progress being made.' There was no immediate comment from the Kremlin. The US president has repeatedly voiced exasperation with Putin for continuing attacks on Ukraine despite US efforts to end the war and has threatened both sanctions on Russia and buyers of its exports unless progress is made. Before returning for a second term in the White House in January, Trump, who views himself as a peacemaker, had promised to end the three-and-a-half-year-old conflict within 24 hours. 'There's no reason to wait. If you know what the answer is going to be, why wait? And it would be sanctions and maybe tariffs, secondary tariffs,' Trump said. 'I don't want to do that to Russia. I love the Russian people.' But the US president, who has also expressed annoyance with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has not always followed up on his tough talk about Putin with action, citing what he deems a good relationship that the two men have had previously. 'We thought we had that settled numerous times, and then President Putin goes out and starts launching rockets into some city like Kyiv and kills a lot of people in a nursing home or whatever,' Trump said. 'And I say that's not the way to do it.'
Al Jazeera
3 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
Thailand and Cambodia agree to ceasefire: Will it stop the deadly fighting?
The leaders of Cambodia and Thailand have agreed to an 'unconditional' ceasefire, effective on Monday at midnight, in a bid to bring an end to their deadliest border conflict in more than a decade. Thailand's acting Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai and Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Manet agreed to put down their arms after five days of fierce fighting that killed at least 36 people. Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who hosted the talks in Malaysia's administrative capital, Putrajaya, said that Thailand and Cambodia had agreed to an 'immediate and unconditional' ceasefire. 'This is a vital first step towards de-escalation and the restoration of peace and security,' Anwar declared. A meeting between the military commanders of both nations will follow on Tuesday, he added. The ceasefire will come into force at midnight (17:00 GMT) as Monday becomes Tuesday. Thailand and Cambodia have blamed each other for the border conflict that erupted on Thursday, July 24. The latest conflict, which dates back to disagreements over colonial-era maps, has displaced more than 270,000 from both sides of the Thailand-Cambodia 817-km (508-mile) land border. What did rival leaders say? Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Manet said: 'Today we have a very good meeting and very good results … that hope to stop immediately the fighting that has caused many lives lost, injuries and also caused displacement of people.' 'We hope that the solutions that Prime Minister Anwar just announced will set a condition for moving forward for our bilateral discussion to return to normalcy of the relationship, and as a foundation for future de-escalation of forces,' he added. Meanwhile, Thailand's acting Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai, who had expressed doubts about Cambodia's sincerity ahead of negotiations in Malaysia, said Thailand had agreed to a ceasefire that would 'be carried out successfully in good faith by both sides'. In a joint statement issued after the talks had finished, Malaysia, Thailand and Cambodia said their respective defence ministers 'have been instructed to develop a detailed mechanism for the implementation, verification, and reporting of the ceasefire'. The sides also agreed to move ahead with a meeting of their so-called 'General Border Committee' on August 4, in Cambodia. Why were the two countries fighting? The Southeast Asian neighbours have accused each other of starting hostilities last week, before escalating the conflict with heavy artillery bombardments. Fighting began between the South Asian neighbours on July 24, following weeks of tensions which had been brewing since May, when a Cambodian soldier was killed in an armed confrontation on the border. In February, a dispute over Prasat Ta Moan Thom, a Khmer temple close to the border in Thailand, intensified when Thai police stopped Cambodian tourists from singing their national anthem near the holy site. Since the start of the year, Thailand's Interior Ministry says more than 138,000 people have been evacuated from regions bordering Cambodia. On the other side, more than 20,000 Cambodians have been evacuated, according to local media. Reporting from Thailand's border province of Surin on Monday, Al Jazeera's Tony Cheng said the ceasefire announcement is welcome news for many people, especially those living along the border who have been displaced. 'There are so many people who have been affected by this, and they just want to go home so badly,' he said on Monday. But Cheng also reported that clashes were still occurring on both sides of the border, even as the talks in Malaysia had concluded. What role did the US and China play? Diplomats from the United States and China were also present at the meeting in Malaysia. Hun Manet, Cambodia's PM, said on Monday that the meeting had been 'co-organised by the United States and with participation of China'. China has strong economic links to Thailand and Cambodia, and is a close political ally of the latter. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday welcomed the ceasefire. 'The United States applauds the ceasefire declaration between Cambodia and Thailand announced today in Kuala Lumpur,' Rubio said in a statement. 'We urge all parties to follow through on their commitments.' In separate calls with Phumtham and Hun Manet on Saturday, Trump had threatened that Washington would not reach trade deals with either country as long as fighting continued. 'We're not going to make a trade deal unless you settle the war,' Trump said on Sunday, adding that both leaders expressed willingness to negotiate after speaking with him directly. Both Thailand and Cambodia face the prospect of a 36 percent US tariff from August 1. In their remarks after the meeting, both Phumtham and Hun Manet thanked Anwar and Trump, as well as China, for helping reach the ceasefire.
