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Philippines open to procuring BrahMos, other Indian defence systems amid China threat: Marcos
Philippines President Ferdinand 'Bongbong' Marcos Jr said on Tuesday that his government remains open to acquiring India-made defence systems, including the BrahMos missile, as part of efforts to modernise the country's military and respond to growing regional security challenges.
Talking to Firstpost Managing Editor Palki Sharma, Marcos Jr said 'Everything is on the table when it comes to the modernisation of our military,' Marcos said, adding, 'We are looking at what is suitable for our defence needs. We are reacting to the challenges we are getting.'
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The Philippines is currently pursuing a military modernisation programme to strengthen its deterrence capabilities, especially in the face of rising tensions in the South China Sea. The country became the first foreign buyer of the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile in 2022 and is reportedly exploring further defence collaborations with India.
President Marcos reaffirmed his commitment to national security, stating, 'It is my duty to defend the country.'
Addressing broader regional dynamics, Marcos called for the formation of a 'global coalition of like-minded states with shared values' to counter the growing threat posed by China's assertive actions in disputed waters. He also warned against attempts to alter territorial boundaries unilaterally, saying, 'Any unilateral attempt to change boundaries must be opposed.'
India and the Philippines have been steadily enhancing their defence partnership, with both countries emphasising freedom of navigation, adherence to international law, and regional stability.
India and the Philippines on Tuesday decided to elevate their ties to a Strategic Partnership with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr agreeing for expeditious conclusion of the negotiations of the Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) between India and the Philippines for further promotion of mutual trade.
The two countries agreed to enhance defence cooperation, with President Marcos thanking PM Modi for cooperation in the area of defence industry and export of platforms, including the BrahMos.
The diplomatic relationship between the two countries was established in November 1949. Both countries are now celebrating the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations.
Economic and commercial engagement is an important aspect of the India-Philippines bilateral relationship. Bilateral trade between India and the Philippines reached 3.5 billion USD in 2023-24. There is a notable presence of Indian companies in the Philippines, in the areas of IT and ITES, health-care and pharmaceuticals, textiles, infrastructure, FMCG, chemicals, automobiles, agriculture, among others.
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday announced that India will be offering free e-visas to Filipino tourists, in a reciprocal move following the Philippines' decision to grant visa-free entry to Indian nationals.
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Mint
12 minutes ago
- Mint
The ultimate guide to the Trump tariff fallout: Trade wars, Russian oil, and India-US ties
New Delhi: A fortnight after Donald Trump won the US presidential election in November 2024, Rahul Roy-Chaudhuri, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, was speaking at a global conference on Trump in Naples, Italy. 'I noticed that the Europeans were very pessimistic, whereas the Indians were optimistic—cautious, but optimistic. They were upbeat about Trump," said Roy-Chaudhuri, a specialist in South Asian affairs, who was presenting a paper on the Indian perspective. Now, days after Trump announced a stiff new tariff regime and secondary sanctions against India, the London-based strategic analyst wonders, 'Did we get that wrong? Were the Europeans right after all?" He's not the only one left bewildered by Trump's measures—although this story is still developing, with a myriad unknowns that could tip the scales in favour of India. Why us, is a common refrain heard among civil servants and businesses in New Delhi these days, although some say India should have seen this coming, and drawn hard lessons from Trump's first term, when he forced India to lower tariffs on US-made Harley Davidson motorcycles and bourbon whisky. Back when Trump first made a bid for the US presidency in 2016, India and Indians leapt to his aid. With the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party champing at the bit to craft a new foreign policy that would eject ideology in favour of trade and business, the moment seemed opportune. Hell, you could even say auspicious. Some in India publicly prayed for Trump's victory with garlands, chants and conch-shells. In the US, meanwhile, influential Indian-origin supporters of his Republican Party swiftly swung into action helping organise glamorous fund raisers and public meetings. Back then, it seemed, India couldn't put a foot wrong as both countries forged closer ties against the backdrop of Chinese belligerence in India's neighbourhood and the Asia-Pacific region. But seven months into his second term, Trump has hiked tariffs on some Indian imports to 25% and imposed secondary sanctions in the form of another 25% tariffs for purchases of sanctioned Russian oil, which are set to kick in on 27 August. Announced in the middle of US-India negotiations on a bilateral trade agreement (BTA) that the two sides expect will take mutual trade to $500 billion by 2030, India called the move 'unfair, unjustified and unreasonable". Mint breaks down the tariff war, the future of bilateral trade, India's (and the world's) energy trade with Russia, the changing landscape of foreign policy, and what could heal the injured Indo-US ties. What went wrong 'There was a mismatch of expectations around the bread and butter issues of the trade agreement," said Pankaj Saran, former deputy national security adviser and ex-ambassador to Russia. 'Even the first time around (the first Trump presidency), we had a difficult experience. This time, we were mindful of past experience and offered a generous package, with a lot of concessions. The Americans admitted they had received it but they were unsure how to handle it internally." Not just Americans and Indians, no one's quite sure how to deal with the most mercurial US presidency in living memory. But the reversal in India-US ties, as India pushed back on American demands to open up its market for agricultural produce and allow genetically modified (GM) products, has been stunning. 'There is no precedent," said Saran. 'Trump's mode of operation is that there is no last word. It is a combination of strategies involving a mix of carrot, stick and public admonition. For him, it seems, outcomes are more important." Who needs Russia more? Both Europe and America continue to buy vital commodities from Russia. America, for instance, continues to import Russian enriched uranium, plutonium, fertilisers and palladium, a key mineral used in catalytic converters in vehicles. And although European Union (EU) imports from Russia have fallen 86% since the first quarter of 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine, Reuters reported on 6 August that the 27-nation grouping continues to buy Russian oil, nickel, natural gas, fertilizer, iron and steel from Russia. In fact, according to energy trade data tracked by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, a non-profit think-tank founded in Helsinki, the EU was the world's leading buyer of Russian LNG and piped gas—key to heating up countries with growing ageing populations and harsh winters. Indian purchases were convenient for the US and EU, which bought products refined in India from Russian crude, while global prices were shored up. As Eric Garcetti, who was US ambassador to India under former President Joe Biden, told the Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations in May 2024, 'They [India] bought Russian oil because we wanted someone to buy Russian oil at a price cap—that was not a violation or anything, that was actually the design of the policy, because as a commodity, we did not want the price of oil to go up. They fulfilled that." Trump's political priorities Trump wants to address three overarching domestic problems by the tariffs—trade balance, budget deficit and his fiscal problem, said Mohandas Pai, chairman of Aarin Capital. 'He wants to reduce the trade deficit with India ($45.8 bn in 2024) by cutting imports. But the US has very little to export except high-tech products, defence equipment and aircraft. Trump seems to have forgotten the 450 Boeing aircraft orders India has already placed," Pai said. 'Tariffs don't work' There are several dimensions to the current political problems that the Trump administration is attempting to solve, and pivoting to just one, that is restricting imports, will not solve problems that are large and generic in nature, said Neelkanth Mishra, chief economist at Axis Bank. 'The Americans have forgotten that tariffs don't work. If anyone thinks that the profit pools of exporters to the US or American firms importing goods are so large that $500-600 billion of tariffs can be absorbed, then they are completely mistaken. These are efficient markets, and therefore have thin margins." Figures released by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, analysed by Fox News, showed that the US budget deficit ballooned by $109 billion to $1.6 trillion in the first 10 months of FY25 compared with the same period a year ago, despite the tariffs. Spending rose by $372 billion over this period, led by expenditure on benefits, including for medical aid for America's ageing population. National debt surged $60 billion to $37 trillion. Inflation is coming Cost escalations are set to be passed on to American consumers. According to research by The Budget Lab, an independent think tank of Yale University, published on 7 August, American consumers are set to bear an overall average effective tariff rate of 18.6%, the highest since 1933. After taking into account changes in consumer spending patterns, influenced by factors like income and prices, the average tariff rate will be 17.7%, the highest since 1934. This is not good news for Indian exports either. The tariffs disproportionately impact labour-intensive clothing and textiles, with US consumers facing 39% higher shoe prices and 37% higher apparel prices over the next two years. Not surprisingly, Trump has spared two sectors from high tariffs, pharmaceuticals and smartphones, unwilling to tinker with cheap Indian-made generic drugs and mobile phones prices. The prize for peace Things could turn around very quickly for India if a planned 15-August summit between Trump and Russian president Vladimir Putin manages to strike a peace deal—an outcome that should scotch at a stroke the raison d'être for secondary sanctions. It is not known if Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, who has European backing, will attend. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Zelensky had a conversation on Monday, following which the Ukrainian leader said on X, 'I had a long conversation with the Prime Minister of India. We discussed in detail all important issues—both of our bilateral cooperation and the overall diplomatic situation. I am grateful to the Prime Minister for his warm words of support for our people. It is important that India is supporting our peace efforts and shares the position that everything concerning Ukraine must be decided with Ukraine's participation. Other formats will not deliver results." To be sure, even if the peace deal goes through, which would be a massive feather in Trump's world peace-building cap and Nobel peace prize aspirations, it is not clear if Washington would withdraw the 25% tariffs. The 'superimposition' shock Analysts say signs of Trump's tariff obsession have long been strewn around global trade channels. He began calling India the 'tariff king" in his first presidency and, continuing to riff on the theme, made clear in the hustings last year that he will stop countries from selling goods on the cheap in America, a key pledge that pleased his core MAGA (Make America Great Again) constituency. Rather, it is the non-trade stuff, chiefly the way Trump handled the aftermath of this year's India-Pakistan conflict, that came as a shock—an intrusion that Saran calls 'the superimposition of the political aspect". This was marked by Trump's repeated claims to have helped end the conflict, denied by New Delhi, which views Kashmir mediation as a red line, and his hosting the Pakistan army chief, Gen. Asim Munir, at the White House. The man later issued outrageous nuclear threats from American soil. 'There's no doubt that Pakistan has come up in the political relationship (with America)," said Saran in comments made before Munir's nuclear threats. 'Trump probably found the India-Pakistan conflict to be a geo-political surprise, and he is convinced about the American role in ending it. The difference between the Indian and Pakistani approach to this was sharp. The disagreements began with trade, and political aspects were superimposed on it." White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said Trump hosted Munir after he called for the president to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. According to Roy-Chaudhuri of IISS, New Delhi may have 'mismanaged massaging his (Trump's) ego". How to heal With India seen by much of the world as key to addressing the negative impact of a fragmented world described by some experts as a fallout of 'deglobalization," its relationship with the US will be keenly watched. For ties to heal, some suggest looking at some of the domestic economic areas that have emerged as irritants. 'Politicians, like markets, tend to be forward-looking," said Mishra, asked if tariffs could spur domestic reforms. 'Consensus needs an external pressure to allow the government to go through meaningful reforms, in agriculture and GM crops for instance. We've been reluctant to change. Why not change now? In manufacturing, we should be looking at domestic demand. The assumption everyone makes is that manufacturing is chiefly for exports—that is wrong. Export competitiveness is important for better productivity, but exports as a source of end-demand are unlikely to be large enough." To be sure, introducing such reforms in India won't be easy. New Delhi, after all, chose to walk out of the Doha Round of trade talks in 2008 rather than give in to American pressure on agriculture. China supported the Indian position against the US then, and something similar may be happening this time around too, with four of the Brics Plus grouping founders— Brazil, Russia, India and China—reportedly eyeing a response to tariffs. Trump is deeply suspicious of Brics, viewing it as anti-American, and this has emerged as another sticking point in India-US ties. But the Russian ambassador to India told a recent meeting on Brics, organised by the India Foundation, more than once that 'de-dollarization (finding an alternative to the global currency of trade) was never a Brics proposal". Pai recommends keeping the temperature down. 'India and the US are joined at the hips when it comes to technology. As many as 25 major US tech companies have Indian-origin CEOs," said Pai, whose Aarin Capital is an investor in technology-intensive businesses. 'It's a temporary set-back. In India, there's a lot of pride; we are not deal-driven." A test ahead 'Trump's Presidency is a work in progress," said Saran. 'You have to play with the cards you are dealt. We have to find our own equilibrium with President Trump, and be careful not to make matters worse. Indian diplomacy will be strongly tested in the coming years, with flashes from the Cold War years, now fuelled by terrorism, threatening to cloud what promised to be a new era of growth-fuelled development. Equally, with a mercurial US president, things could swing right back to a more predictable and respectful relationship. But even amid the current uncertainty, Indian diplomats can draw satisfaction from the fact that an increasingly multipolar world sees India as a shining example of economic progress. And that's something even Trump cannot ignore.
Time of India
12 minutes ago
- Time of India
'Will Destroy Jagannath Temple': Terror Graffiti In Puri Shrine Sparks Alarm, Police Launch Probe
Threatening messages warning of an attack on the Jagannath temple were found near the shrine in Puri, causing alarm. The graffiti, written in Odia and English, mentioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi and included phone numbers urging people to call. The messages were quickly erased by locals. Several decorative lights in the Heritage Corridor were also damaged, raising serious security concerns. The area is under constant CCTV and police watch, yet the incident exposed lapses. Police have launched an investigation and are reviewing camera footage, treating the case seriously to ensure the safety of the temple and its devotees.#puritemple #jagannathtemple #terrorthreat #securitybreach #puriheritagecorridor #odisha #pmmodi #cctv #policeinvestigation #toi #toibharat
Economic Times
13 minutes ago
- Economic Times
India set to allow its private firms to mine and import uranium to help nuclear expansion
Synopsis India is set to end its state monopoly over the nuclear sector, allowing private firms to mine, import, and process uranium. This move aims to attract billions in investment and boost nuclear power production twelvefold by 2047. The government will retain control over spent fuel reprocessing and waste management while relaxing foreign investment rules to meet rising fuel demands. Agencies India aims to allow private firms to mine, import and process uranium as part of plans to end a decades-old state monopoly over the nuclear sector and bring in billions of dollars to boost the industry, two government sources said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government plans to expand nuclear power production capacity by 12 times by 2047 and it is also relaxing requirements to allow foreign players to take a minority stake in power plants, Reuters reported in April. If it meets its expansion goal, nuclear will provide 5% of India's total power needs, according to government estimates. Until now, the state has maintained control over the mining, import and processing of uranium fuel because of concerns over the possible misuse of nuclear material, radiation safety and strategic security. It will retain its grip on reprocessing spent uranium fuel and managing plutonium waste, in line with global practice. But to help meet a surge in demand for nuclear fuel as it expands nuclear power production, the government plans to draw up a regulatory framework that would allow private Indian firms to mine, import and process uranium, the two government sources told Reuters. They asked not to be named because the plans are not yet public. The proposed policy, which the sources said was likely to be made public in the current fiscal year, will also permit private players to supply critical control system equipment for nuclear power plants, they said. The Finance Ministry, Department of Atomic Energy and Prime Minister's Office did not respond to Reuters' requests for comment. Outside India, countries including Canada, South Africa and the United States allow private firms to mine and process uranium. India has an estimated 76,000 tonnes of uranium enough to fuel 10,000 megawatts of nuclear power for 30 years, according to government data. But the sources said domestic resources would only be able to meet about 25% of the projected increase. The rest would have to be imported and India would need to increase its processing capacity. In announcing its budget on February 1, the government made public its plans to open up the sector without giving details. Some of India's big conglomerates subsequently began drawing up investment plans. But analysts said amending the legislation could be complex. "It's a major and bold initiative by the Indian Government which is critical for achieving the target," said Charudatta Palekar, independent power sector consultant. "The challenge will be to define quickly the rules of engagement with private sector." New Delhi will have to change five laws, including the ones regulating mining and electricity sectors and India's foreign direct investment policy to enable private participation in many identified activities, the sources said.
