{"id":83349,"date":"2025-07-22T14:07:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T14:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/83349\/"},"modified":"2025-07-22T14:07:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T14:07:08","slug":"trump-and-philippine-leader-plan-to-talk-tariffs-and-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/83349\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump and Philippine leader plan to talk tariffs and China"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump<\/a> plans to host Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.<\/a> on Tuesday at the White House, as the two countries are seeking closer security and economic ties in the face of shifting geopolitics in the Indo-Pacific region.<\/p>\n

Marcos, who met Secretary of State Marco Rubio<\/a> and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth<\/a> on Monday, is set to become the first Southeast Asian leader to hold talks with Trump in his second term. <\/p>\n

Marcos\u2019 three-day visit shows the importance of the alliance between the treaty partners at a time when China is increasingly assertive in the South China Sea, where Manila and Beijing have clashed over the hotly contested Scarborough Shoal<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Washington sees Beijing, the world\u2019s No. 2 economy, as its biggest competitor, and consecutive presidential administrations have sought to shift U.S. military and economic focus<\/a> to the Asia-Pacific in a bid to counter China. Trump, like others before him, has been distracted by efforts to broker peace<\/a> in a range of conflicts, from Ukraine<\/a> to Gaza<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Tariffs also are expected to be on the agenda. Trump has threatened to impose 20% tariffs on Filipino goods<\/a> on Aug. 1 unless the two sides can strike a deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cI intend to convey to President Trump and his Cabinet officials that the Philippines is ready to negotiate a bilateral trade deal that will ensure strong, mutually beneficial and future-oriented collaborations that only the United States and the Philippines will be able to take advantage of,\u201d Marcos said Sunday when he was departing for Washington, according to his office.<\/p>\n

Manila is open to offering zero tariffs on some U.S. goods to strike a deal with Trump, finance chief Ralph Recto told local journalists.<\/p>\n

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt hinted that a trade agreement with the Philippines was in the works. \u201cPerhaps this will be a topic of discussion,\u201d she told reporters Monday when asked about tariff negotiations.<\/p>\n

The White House said Trump will discuss with Marcos the shared commitment to upholding a free, open, prosperous and secure Indo-Pacific.<\/p>\n

Before a meeting with Marcos at the Pentagon, Hegseth reiterated America\u2019s commitment to \u201cachieving peace through strength\u201d in the region.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur storied alliance has never been stronger or more essential than it is today, and together we remain committed to the mutual defense treaty,\u201d Hegseth said Monday. \u201cAnd this pact extends to armed attacks on our armed forces, aircraft or public vessels, including our Coast Guard anywhere in the Pacific, including the South China Sea.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marcos, whose country is one of the oldest U.S. treaty allies in the Pacific region, told Hegseth that the assurance to come to each other\u2019s mutual defense \u201ccontinues to be the cornerstone of that relationship, especially when it comes to defense and security cooperation.\u201d <\/p>\n

He said the cooperation has deepened since Hegseth\u2019s March visit to Manila, including joint exercises<\/a> and U.S. support in modernizing the Philippines\u2019 armed forces. Marcos thanked the U.S. for support \u201cthat we need in the face of the threats that we, our country, is facing.\u201d<\/p>\n

China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan have been involved in long-unresolved territorial conflicts in the South China Sea, a busy shipping passage for global trade.<\/p>\n

The Chinese coast guard has repeatedly used water cannon<\/a> to hit Filipino boats in the South China Sea. China accused those vessels of entering the waters illegally or encroaching on its territory.<\/p>\n

Hegseth told a security forum in Singapore<\/a> in May that China poses a threat and the U.S. is \u201creorienting toward deterring aggression by Communist China.\u201d<\/p>\n

During Marcos\u2019 meeting Monday with Rubio, the two reaffirmed the alliance \u201cto maintain peace and stability\u201d in the region and discussed closer economic ties, including boosting supply chains, State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said. <\/p>\n

The U.S. has endeavored to keep communication open with Beijing<\/a>. Rubio and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met this month on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations regional forum in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. They agreed to explore \u201careas of potential cooperation\u201d and stressed the importance of managing differences<\/a>.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press writer Chris Megerian contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump plans to host Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Tuesday at the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":83350,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[13214,9710,13212,69,12042,56706,57,86,3464,13790,8133,24953,410,8132,50,6986,24958,56708,80,56707,24951,5322,16618,370,13217,93,103,107],"class_list":{"0":"post-83349","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-asia-pacific","9":"tag-beijing","10":"tag-china-government","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-economic-policy","13":"tag-ferdinand-marcos-jr","14":"tag-general-news","15":"tag-government-policy","16":"tag-international-agreements","17":"tag-international-trade","18":"tag-karoline-leavitt","19":"tag-manila","20":"tag-marco-rubio","21":"tag-military-and-defense","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-pete-hegseth","24":"tag-philippines","25":"tag-philippines-government","26":"tag-politics","27":"tag-ralph-recto","28":"tag-south-china-sea","29":"tag-tammy-bruce","30":"tag-tariffs-and-global-trade","31":"tag-united-states-government","32":"tag-wang-yi","33":"tag-washington-news","34":"tag-world","35":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114897279047090837","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}