Latest news with #Ferdinand Marcos Jr
CNA
5 days ago
- Business
- CNA
Commentary: Trump's tariff deal with the Philippines was all praise, little gain
QUEZON CITY, Philippines: On Jul 22, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr met US President Donald Trump in the White House. High on the agenda was the securing of a lower tariff rate for the Philippines. In the end, all that President Marcos Jr got from what appeared to be a robust and warm exchange with Trump was a 1 percentage point reduction in tariffs imposed on the country by the US. This suggests that Manila, which has sought to diversify its security relations beyond Washington, should do likewise for its economic ties. In a social media post, Trump announced that Marcos' White House visit was 'beautiful', and that he was a 'very tough negotiator'. But Trump also announced that the Philippines hardly budged in trade negotiations. As a result, it will pay a 19 per cent tariff, just 1 percentage point lower than the 20 per cent indicated in a letter sent to Marcos Jr on Jul 9. This was higher than the 17 per cent tariff stipulated in April. The turn of events does not speak well of the Trump 2.0 administration's overall appreciation of Philippines-US relations. Marcos was able to secure continued cooperation on defence and strategic matters, including the building of an ammunition facility in Subic, a former US naval base. Renewed US commitments to the ironclad alliance between the two countries were not reflected in the tariff reduction of just 1 percentage point. LACK OF RECIPROCITY IN TRUMP'S TARIFFS Trump also announced (in his inimitable capitalisation style, or lack thereof) that 'The Philippines is going OPEN MARKET with the United States, and ZERO Tariffs'. Marcos clarified that this applies to automobiles imported from the US, so that automobiles imported by the Philippines from the US will now have zero tariffs. It remains unclear whether this applies to other products as well. On the one hand, this might benefit Filipinos because some things they import from the US will be possibly cheaper. But this highlights the yawning lack of reciprocity in Trump's tariffs. If the Philippines is not imposing tariffs on US goods, the US should also reduce most tariffs on Philippine exports to the US. Then again, Trump has a totally warped notion of tariffs to begin with. Back in April, economists noted that the original tariff rates were not even related to the true extent of effective tariff rates set by various countries in the US. The Philippines, for example, imposed in 2024 an average Most Favoured Nation tariff on US imports of 6 per cent: 9.5 per cent for agricultural goods and 5.4 per cent for non-agricultural goods. Trump's tariff rate on the Philippines of 17 per cent (now 19 per cent) is not commensurate. Trump still fails to realise that tariffs are paid not by other countries but by American consumers. Consequently, Americans should brace for higher inflation. While April and May inflation remained muted, economists warn that inflation will skyrocket once Trump's tariffs are pushed through. Another round of US inflation spikes (similar to what happened in 2022) does not bode well for the Philippine economy and the rest of ASEAN. This will likely result in an increase in interest rates. This is exactly what ASEAN central banks did between 2022 and 2023. More worryingly, another round of interest rate hikes, sooner or later, will dampen already weak regional economic growth. WHAT'S NEXT FOR THE PHILIPPINES So, what now for the Philippines? The 19 per cent tariff rate is still lower than what other neighbouring ASEAN economies got. Vietnam got 20 per cent and Indonesia 19 per cent. Both rates are significantly lower than the April rates of 40 per cent and 32 per cent, respectively. The two countries, which are not formal military allies of Washington, fared better in their negotiations with the US compared to the Philippines, a formal US treaty ally. Nevertheless, the US remains the biggest destination of Philippine exports (about 17 per cent of total exports), and the semiconductor industry is likely to be hit significantly. It would have been better if Marcos Jr had been able to secure a tariff exemption on Philippine semiconductors. Still, other vulnerable sectors include garments, food, and agricultural products – as suggested by the experience during the trade war during the first Trump administration. Looking for a silver lining, the Philippine government hopes that some trade from higher-tariffed countries may be diverted to the Philippines because of the country's relatively lower tariff rate. But this is unlikely given the country's lack of competitiveness. This is due to ongoing deficits in the country's logistics and transportation infrastructure, overreliance on low value-added parts of global value chains, and worrying gaps in human capital. During the previous Trump administration's trade war, these constraints did not help the Philippines become an alternative trade partner and investment destination. On Monday (Jul 28), Marcos Jr will deliver his fourth State of the Nation Address, and he is likely to brag about the profuse praise he got from Trump as well as the new tariff rate. With the Philippines ending up with an even higher tariff than in April, that hardly points to Marcos being a 'very good, very tough' negotiator. The outcome of the US trip should serve as a powerful signal to the Marcos Jr administration. As it started to diversify its security relations beyond the US alliance by deepening cooperation with middle powers such as Japan and Australia, it must do the same to promote its economic interests. Under Trump 2.0, it might be wise for the Philippines not to put all its economic eggs in the US basket. JC Punongbayan is an assistant professor at the University of the Philippines School of Economics and Aries A Arugay is Visiting Senior Fellow and Coordinator of the Philippine Studies Programme at ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute. This commentary first appeared on ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute's blog, Fulcrum.
The Guardian
6 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Sentence before verdict: Trump's attack on Obama is straight out of Alice in Wonderland
Almost every American knows that in our legal system, people accused of crimes are presumed innocent. The burden is on the government to overcome that presumption and prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Those simple but powerful maxims were once a source of national pride. They distinguished the United States from countries where government officials and political leaders branded the opponents guilty before they were charged with a crime or brought to trial. In Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union, the Alice-in-Wonderland world of 'sentence first-verdict afterwards' came to life in infamous show trials. Those trials lacked all the requisites of fairness. Evidence was manufactured to demonstrate the guilt of the regime's enemies. Show trials told the story the government wanted told and were designed to signal that anyone, innocent or not, could be convicted of a crime against the state. So far, at least, this country has avoided Stalinesque show trials. But the logic of the show trial was very much on display this week in the Oval Office. In a now-familiar scene, during a meeting with the Philippines president, Ferdinand Marcos Jr, Donald Trump went off script. He turned a reporter's question about the unfolding Jeffrey Epstein scandal into an occasion to say that former president Barack Obama had committed 'treason' by interfering in the 2016 presidential election. 'He's guilty,' Trump asserted, 'This was treason. This was every word you can think of.' Speaking after the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, released a report on alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election, the president said: 'Obama was trying to lead a coup. And it was with Hillary Clinton.' Republican congressmen and senators, including the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who investigated allegations of Obama's involvement five years ago, found nothing to support them. But none of that mattered to the president on Tuesday. As Trump put it: 'Whether it's right or wrong, it's time to go after people. Obama's been caught directly.' Not hiding his motives, Trump said: 'It's time to start after what they did to me.' Guilt first. Charges, trials and other legal niceties come later. This is American justice, Donald Trump-style. He wants no part of the long and storied tradition in which presidents kept an arms-length relationship with the justice department and did not interfere with its decisions about whether and whom to prosecute for crimes. What Trump said about Obama is, the New York Times notes, 'a stark example of his campaign of retribution against an ever-growing list of enemies that has little analogue in American history'. Putting one of his predecessors on trial also would take some of the sting out of Trump's own dubious distinction of being the only former president to have been convicted of a felony. Some may be tempted to write off the president's latest Oval Office pronouncements as an unhinged rant or only an effort to distract attention from Trump's Epstein troubles. But that would be a mistake. A recent article by the neuroscientist Tali Sharot and the law professor Cass Sunstein helps explain why. That article is titled: 'Will We Habituate to the Decline of Democracy?' Sharot and Sunstein argue that America is on the cusp of a dangerous moment in its political history. They say that we can understand why by turning to neuroscience, not to political science. Neuroscience teaches us that 'people are less likely to respond to or even notice gradual changes. That is largely due to habituation, which is the brain's tendency to react less and less to things that are constant or that change slowly.' In politics, 'when democratic norms are violated repeatedly, people begin to adjust. The first time a president refuses to concede an election, it's a crisis. The second time, it's a controversy. By the third time, it may be just another headline. Each new breach of democratic principles … politicizing the justice system … feels less outrageous than the last.' Americans must resist that tendency. To do so, Sharot and Sunstein argue, we need 'to see things not in light of the deterioration of recent years but in light of our best historical practices, our highest ideals, and our highest aspirations'. In the realm of respect for the rule of law and the presumption of innocence, we can trace those practices, ideals and aspirations back to 1770, when John Adams, a patriot, practicing lawyer and later the second president of the United States, agreed to defend British soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre. Adams did so because he believed that everyone, no matter how reprehensible their act, was entitled to a defense. That principle meant that people needed to learn to withhold judgment, to respect evidence and to hear both sides of a story before making up their minds. That was a valuable lesson for those who would later want to lead our constitutional republic, as well as for its citizens. The trial of the British soldiers turned out, as the author Christopher Klein writes, to be 'the first time reasonable doubt had ever been used as a standard'. Fast forward to 1940, and the memorable speech of the attorney general, Robert Jackson, to a gathering of United States attorneys. What he said about their role might also be said about the president's assertions about Obama. Jackson observed that US attorneys had 'more control over life, liberty, and reputation than any other person in America'. A prosecutor, he explained, 'can have citizens investigated and, if he is that kind of person, he can have this done to the tune of public statements and veiled or unveiled intimations … The prosecutor can order arrests … and on the basis of his one-sided presentation of the facts, can cause the citizen to be indicted and held for trial.' Sound familiar? The president is not a prosecutor, but since he has returned to power, President Trump has behaved and encouraged those in the justice department to ignore Jackson's warnings that a prosecutor should focus on 'cases that need to be prosecuted' rather than 'people that he thinks he should get'. Targeting people, not crimes, means that the people prosecuted will be those who are 'unpopular with the predominant or governing group' or are 'attached to the wrong political views, or [are] personally obnoxious to or in the way of the prosecutor himself'. Jackson restated a long-cherished American ideal, namely that those with the power to ruin lives and reputations should seek 'truth and not victims' and serve 'the law and not factional purposes'. Since then, presidents of both parties, in even the most controversial cases and those involving allies or opponents, have heeded Jackson's warnings. They have said nothing about pending cases, let alone announcing that it's time 'to go after' people. But no more. The justice department seems ready and willing to do the president's bidding, even though there is no evidence that President Obama did anything wrong in regard to the 2016 election. In addition, he may have immunity from criminal prosecution for anything he did in his official capacity. Trump's attack on the 'traitorous' Obama may be predictable. But it should not be acceptable to any of us. Sharot and Sunstein get it right when they say, 'To avoid habituating ourselves to the torrent of President Trump's assaults on democracy and the rule of law, we need to keep our best practices, ideals, and aspirations firmly in view what we've done.' We need 'to compare what is happening today not to what happened yesterday or the day before, but to what we hope will happen tomorrow'. To get to that world, it is important to recall the words of John Adams and Robert Jackson and work to give them life again. Austin Sarat, William Nelson Cromwell professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College, is the author or editor of more than 100 books, including Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America's Death Penalty
Yahoo
24-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
US, Philippines strike tariff deal
This story was originally published on Supply Chain Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Supply Chain Dive newsletter. The U.S. and the Philippines reached terms on a deal focused on tariffs and market access, President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social Tuesday. Under the 'concluded' trade deal, imports from the Philippines would be subject to a 19% tariff, according to Trump. Meanwhile, U.S. exports would have full market access to the country and face 'ZERO tariffs,' the president said. Earlier this month, Trump said imports from the Philippines were scheduled to incur a 20% tariff starting Aug. 1. Trump initially announced a lower rate of 17% in April, which was later paused. 'We do a lot of business with [the Philippines], it's a lot of income coming in for both groups,' Trump said at the Oval Office Tuesday, prior to announcing the deal. 'But I was surprised to see the kind of numbers — they are very big — and they are going to get bigger under what we're doing and what we're proposing.' As of publication time, the White House has yet to reveal official documentation of the agreement. However, Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said during a Wednesday media briefing that U.S. automobiles were a major area of the deal. 'We will open that market, and no longer charge tariffs on that,' Marcos said. The proposed pact is also meant to increase imports of U.S. soy and wheat products, as well as pharmaceuticals, Marcos said. 'We managed to bring down the 20% tariff rate for the Philippines to 19,' said Marcos. 'Now, 1% might seem like a very small concession, however when you put it into real terms it is a significant achievement.' In 2024, the U.S. had a $5 billion trade deficit with the Philippines, with imports accounting for 0.4% of U.S. trade, according to data from the U.S. International Trade Comission. Meanwhile, the U.S. exported about $9 billion in products to the Philippines last year. The tariff deal announcement was one of several from the Trump administration this week. The White House unveiled terms of a trade agreement framework with Indonesia Tuesday, while Trump said the U.S. had reached a deal with Japan Tuesday evening. Officials from Japan later confirmed certain details of the pact, such as a 15% duties on imports from the country, including for cars and auto parts. Previously, the U.S. and the UK finalized certain terms of a deal, while negotiations are ongoing for a pact with China. Trump also said earlier this month that the U.S. had struck a deal with Vietnam, but the country has not provided confirmation through official channels. Recommended Reading Who are the United States' top trading partners? Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
23-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump says deal reached with Philippines on tariffs
The U.S. has reached a trade deal with the Philippines following a meeting Tuesday between President Donald Trump and the country's president, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., at the White House, Trump announced on social media. 'It was a beautiful visit, and we concluded our Trade Deal, whereby The Philippines is going OPEN MARKET with the United States, and ZERO Tariffs,' the president wrote on Truth Social. According to Trump, the U.S. will impose a 19 percent tariff on imports from the Philippines, higher than the 17 percent 'reciprocal' duty the U.S. briefly imposed in April but slightly lower than the 20 percent tariff he threatened in a letter earlier this month. 'In addition, we will work together Militarily. It was a Great Honor to be with the President. He is Highly Respected in his Country, as he should be. He is also a very good, and tough, negotiator,' Trump wrote in his post. The final terms of the deal have yet to be officially confirmed by the Marcos government, nor did the White House provide further details on the agreement. The White House did, however, release more information on a separate framework for an agreement with neighboring Indonesia that he first touted last week. Like the purported agreement with the Philippines, the framework with Indonesia keeps in place a substantial, 19 percent tariff on exports 'This Deal is a HUGE WIN for our Automakers, Tech Companies, Workers, Farmers, Ranchers, and Manufacturers. Thank you for your attention to this matter. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!," Trump wrote in a separate post to Truth Social, hours after announcing the deal with the Philippines. He also said Indonesia agreed to eliminate '99%' of their tariff barriers to become an 'Open Market to American Industrial and Tech Products, and Agricultural Goods.' Senior officials told reporters on a call Tuesday that Indonesia agreed to address several trade issues the Trump administration had identified in the negotiations, including lifting export restrictions on critical minerals, recognizing certain U.S. federal motor vehicle safety standards and exempting American agricultural imports from certain licensing requirements, among other changes. 'American producers, who have long-faced high tariffs and burdensome requirements, will receive unprecedented access to Indonesia's market and greater certainty for the digital services sector,' USTR Jamieson Greer said in a statement. The White House also released what it described as a joint statement — though the Indonesian government did not immediately publish the agreement — saying the deal 'will provide both countries' exporters unprecedented access to each other's markets.' 'The Agreement on Reciprocal Trade will build upon our longstanding economic relationship, including the U.S.-Indonesia Trade and Investment Framework Agreement, signed on July 16, 1996,' the statement said. Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto acknowledged the agreement in a post on Instagram last week, which Subianto said would lead to a 'new era of mutual benefit' between the countries, but did not confirm the tariff rate. And a report in Indonesia's state news agency Antara raised questions about whether the Indonesian government is on the same page about the duty. Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs, Airlangga Hartarto, is quoted as saying that the 'planned 19 percent tariff will no longer apply to Indonesian goods.' He also described Indonesia's tariff rate brokered in the deal as 'the lowest' among ASEAN countries despite the fact that it matches the 19 percent levy on exports from the Philippines. The U.S. goods trade with Indonesia totaled nearly $40 billion in 2024, with the U.S. importing $28 billion in Indonesian goods. The Philippines, meanwhile, sent $14.2 billion in goods to the U.S. last year and purchased about $9.3 billion worth of American goods, according to data from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. It's not clear, however, how much the countries stands to gain from the new agreements, which maintains a double-digit tariff rates — in the Philippines case, two percent higher than the duty Trump initially levied. 'It is sad that for the Philippines the rate even went up — as an ally it is hard to take,' said a Filipino official close to the negotiations, granted anonymity to speak freely. Solve the daily Crossword
CNA
23-07-2025
- Business
- CNA
Trump strikes trade deals with Japan, Philippines
Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has hailed the US-Japan trade deal as a "triumph", while US President Donald Trump described the pact as the biggest agreement ever made. The US has also struck a trade deal with the Philippines, following a meeting between President Trump and his Philippine counterpart Ferdinand Marcos Jr at the White House. Jagruti Dave reports from Washington.
