We are not Ukraine.
That is the overarching message from officials in the Philippines, who say that they are certain they have the full backing of the United States despite President Trump’s dramatic shifts in foreign policy, including his stunning blowup with Ukraine’s leader. Their confidence, they say, comes from the fact that both Washington and Manila have a common adversary: China.
Mr. Trump is embroiled in a trade war with China, while the Philippines has been involved in increasingly tense standoffs with China in the South China Sea over Beijing’s expansive territorial claims. Manila’s biggest deterrent against China is a mutual defense treaty with the United States. Last month, Washington restored about $400 million in military assistance to the Philippines that had been suspended as part of Mr. Trump’s freeze on foreign aid.
That was the “best proof” that ties between the two countries were intact, Gilberto Teodoro Jr., the Philippines defense secretary, said in an interview in Manila on Tuesday, hours after Mr. Trump suspended military aid to Ukraine.
In recent weeks, Mr. Teodoro and his colleagues have spoken with members of Mr. Trump’s cabinet and received assurances that Washington remains committed to the Philippines and the defense treaty.
“We have no reason to doubt the commitments made by the highest officials of the Trump administration,” said Mr. Teodoro, who flew to Washington in January to meet with Mike Waltz, Mr. Trump’s national security adviser.
But Mr. Trump has exhibited a willingness to tear apart decades-old alliances. He has imposed tariffs on Canada, undermined Europe and rebuffed NATO. While he has not publicly addressed ties with the Philippines, or the broader Indo-Pacific, his actions have caused jitters here.
“We have to prepare for the day when the U.S. could withdraw from the South China Sea,” said Antonio Carpio, a former Supreme Court justice who helped the Philippines win a landmark international ruling against China over its claims in the South China Sea.
Beijing claims about 90 percent of the South China Sea, parts of which are also claimed by Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia and the Philippines. Manila has been at the forefront of the territorial fight, saying that Chinese ships have been blocking access to fishing sites as well as oil and gas deposits in the waters that are in its exclusive economic zone.
Those tensions have escalated dramatically in recent years, raising the risk that Washington could be drawn into a conflict.
President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. has embraced the U.S., reversing a pivot to China by his predecessor. And he has expanded U.S. access to military bases, including to some that face Taiwan, another flashpoint between Washington and Beijing.
Last April, Washington deployed a missile system called Typhon to the Philippines as part of joint military drills. The ground-based launcher can fire cruise missiles that can reach the Chinese mainland from the Philippines.
The United States has a vested interest in maintaining freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, which is one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes. U.S. officials are also concerned about how China has expanded its military footprint there by building and fortifying outposts and airstrips on tiny patches of land.
Jonathan Malaya, the assistant director general of the Philippines’ National Security Council, said that Mr. Trump would not withdraw from the region. He pointed out that Mr. Trump’s first administration introduced the phrase — a “free and open Indo-Pacific.”
He added that Washington’s financial commitments in the Philippines paled in comparison to the billions of dollars in aid it has given Ukraine. And, he emphasized, that Mr. Trump had never supported the Biden administration’s position on the Ukraine war. (On Tuesday, Mr. Trump appeared to cool tensions with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine.)
In December, Mr. Trump spoke with the Philippines’ ambassador to the United States, Jose Manuel Romualdez. He recalled meeting Imelda Marcos, Mr. Marcos’s mother, several times, including at a party in New York in the 1990s.
“As you know, President Trump believes in personal relationships, so he was looking forward to having a meeting with President Marcos at some point,” said Mr. Romualdez, a cousin of Mr. Marcos.
Even before Mr. Trump’s re-election, the Philippines moved to diversify its reliance on the United States, signing military cooperation agreements with Japan and New Zealand. It is also increasing its defense budget this year by 14 percent, to $4.7 billion.
Now it wants to buy the Typhon missile system from the United States to improve its deterrence, according to Mr. Teodoro, the defense secretary.
Beijing has called that plan “a substantial threat to peace and security.”
Mr. Trump’s approach to the Philippines could rest on how his relationship with Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, plays out, according to Ronald Llamas, who was an adviser to the late President Benigno Aquino III.
“With the post-World War II international order turned upside down, a disruptive Trump can go either way,” Mr. Llamas said.
Camille Elemia contributed reporting.
