Philippines anxiously waits for Trump to show his China hand
MANILA – Amid a flurry of executive orders, trade war bluster and imperialist ambitions, US President Donald Trump has been notably restrained in his statements on top rival China.
Posturing as a 'peacemaker,', Trump has said war avoidance and ending existing conflicts are central to his foreign policy agenda. 'President Xi and I will do everything possible to make the World more peaceful and safe,' Trump wrote in a social media post hours before his formal inauguration. 'It is my expectation that we will solve many problems together.'
That and other conciliatory gestures, including an executive order to stall TikTok's ban and a delay in imposing threatened 60% tariffs on all Chinese goods, are sparking speculation that Trump envisions a new 'Monroe Doctrine' order where the US has influence over the Americas while allowing China to consolidate its power unchallenged over East Asia.
That, in turn, is raising concerns of possible abandonment among America's frontline allies in the Pacific, not least in the Philippines, which has played a crucial role in the outgoing Biden administration's extended deterrence policy vis-a-vis China. That included allowing the US Pentagon access to key Philippine military bases near Taiwan and positioning the potent Typhon missile system to point at China from Philippine soil.
'We don't really know what Trump will do…The US has been an isolationist country twice in history [before World War II]… and they can end up isolationist again, and that is the fear here, [that Trump] will agree with China to divide the world,' former Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, who played a central role in Manila's historic 2016 arbitration victory at The Hague on its claims versus China in the South China Sea, said in a recent press conference.
'What if tomorrow Trump says we can't blame China for invading [the] Spratlys [in the South China Sea]. We have to strengthen our defensive capabilities, we have to modernize the Armed Forces of the Philippines. At the end of the day, we can only rely on ourselves…', the influential magistrate at the UTAK Forum in Manila this week.
Carpio is not alone. Other influential Philippine political figures such as former Senator Antonio Trillanes, who cultivated strong personal ties with newly appointed US Secretary of State Marco Rubio during the turbulent Rodrigo Duterte era, have also expressed his concerns.
'Trump is very unpredictable, nothing is set in stone,' he told the author in a recent interview while at the same time expressing hopes that more traditionally-minded cabinet members such as Rubio will hold the line in preserving America's crucial alliances in Asia. The US and the Philippines maintain a mutual defense treaty that obliges Washington to defend Manila in an armed conflict scenario.
Coupled with the appointment of so-called 'restrainers' who seek to limit US military involvement overseas to key defense positions as well as the growing role of right-wing tech billionaire Elon Musk in shaping American foreign policy, Trump's Beijing-friendly rhetoric to date may very well signal a radical reorientation in Washington's external relations and a significant thaw with China.
Accordingly, the Ferdinand Marcos Jr administration is doubling down on defense spending and proactively diversifying the Philippines' strategic relations with powers beyond America across the Indo-Pacific.
'We are not dependent on a single partner or ally. Even in our own resupply missions [in the South China Sea] we do things independently despite offers of help from our ally [America]. We are modernizing, strengthening our alliances, and upscaling our personnel…and deepening our integration and interoperability with like-minded nations,' the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) spokesperson, Colonel Francel Margareth Padilla, said at the UTAK forum.
'We are not dependent on one particular nation and we are expanding our strategic relations with other like-minded powers who also share our interest in upholding a rules-based international order,' she added, underscoring the Philippine strategic elite's anticipation of potential geopolitical disruptions.
In historical terms, Trump's foreign policy approach is not unique and in many ways represents the latest iteration of the so-called 'Jacksonian' tradition. According to historian H W Brands, this school of policy thought is, '[t]he most militant [tradition]…their aim in fighting has been American victory, not the salvation of the world….their sole concern is for the vigorous defense of American honor and interests abroad.'
It's telling that Trump openly and frequently praises the early-19th century, swashbuckling president Andrew Jackson, whose portrait hung in Trump's Oval Office, as 'an amazing figure in American history — very unique [in] so many ways.' Crucially, a host of Jacksonian figures have joined Trump's second administration, with some occupying key positions in the Pentagon.
Just months before his appointment as the new deputy assistant secretary for South and Southeast Asia at the Department of Defense, Andrew Byers, formerly an obscure nonresident fellow at Texas A&M University, co-authored a piece where he openly advocated for quid pro quowith China at the expense of the Philippines in the name of 'strategic restraint.'
'If Trump wins a second term, the intra-party policy debate between neoconservative primacists, China hawks, and 'America First' conservative realists will be decided, provided that this time he hires people who agree with his views,' Byers wrote, predicting a major shift in American foreign policy under a second Trump administration.
Accordingly, he has argued for negotiation of a 'cooperation spiral with China', whereby the US will unilaterally 'remove US military forces or weapons systems from the Philippines in exchange for the [Chinese Coast Guard] executing fewer patrols [in the South China Sea].'
Byers has been joined by similarly-minded figures, including Michael Dimino, the new Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East, who has openly advocated for American strategic retrenchment in critical theaters.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk, the world's richest man seen by some as a 'shadow president', has been running parallel diplomacy with America's adversaries in recent weeks. Known for his relatively sympathetic views toward Russia, Musk has more importantly cultivated crucial commerical ties with Beijing through his Tesla automaker company.
Accordingly, top Filipino strategists such as former Admiral Rommel Ong have openly warned about a potential push for a Sino-American grand bargain to the detriment of smaller allies such as the Philippines.
'[Musk] has substantial investments in China so he might swing it the other way [especially in the event of a crisis], that is my concern… we have to accept he has influence on policy,' he told the author.
At the same time, senior Filipino officials remain cautiously optimistic about the bilateral alliance and the Philippines' strategic resilience.
'It might be too early for us to speculate since we are still in the early days of the Trump administration,' National Security Council (NSC) spokesman Jonathan Malaya said at the recent UTAK forum in Manila, underscoring how the Philippines is a reliable and proactive partner capable of winning over even a transactionalist White House.
'We have shown to the US that we have been ramping up our defense spending, [we have developed] a very clear comprehensive archipelagic defense concept [to protect our waters]… if we follow the logic [of Trump's call for] NATO to do its part… we are also doing the same,' he added, underscoring the positive trajectory in upgrading the bilateral alliance in recent years.
Malaya was also adamant that the recently imposed 90-day aid freeze by the US State Department won't fundamentally derail bilateral defense ties since 'my understanding is that it doesn't cover defense cooperation, but primarily USAID and development-related projects.'
'All their projects here are aligned with Trump's vision of making the US more secure,' he added, expecting more continuity than change under a second Trump presidency. Philippine Coast Guard Commodore Jay Tarriela expressed similar sentiments at the same forum.
'He can say whatever he wants, but key cabinet members [are reassuring] and America is a mature democracy where institutions will ensure the US will remain as an anchor of a rules-based international order,' argued Tarriela, who has been at the forefront of Manila's 'Transparency Initiative' focused on exposing and countering China's aggression in the South China Sea.
'Our fight in the [South China Sea] is for [anybody] who wants to preserve a rules-based international order… that's why many countries are working with us,' he added, underscoring the Philippines' diverse network of partners in Europe and across the Indo-Pacific beyond America.
Follow Richard Javad Heydarian on X at @RichHeydarian
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