US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth yesterday said that the US President Donald Trump administration would boost military ties with the Philippines to strengthen deterrence against “threats from the communist Chinese” and ensure freedom of navigation in the disputed South China Sea.
Hegseth spoke during a meeting with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr in the Philippines, his first stop in his first trip to Asia to reaffirm Washington’s “ironclad” commitment to the region under Trump. Ahead of the visit, China called the US a “predator” and an unreliable ally.
Trump’s “America first” foreign policy thrust has triggered concerns in Asia about the scale and depth of US commitment to the region.
Photo: AP
Hegseth’s decision to make the Philippines his first stop in Asia, followed by Japan — both US treaty allies facing territorial disputes with China — was the strongest assurance yet by the US under Trump to maintain a security presence in the region.
“Deterrence is necessary around the world but specifically in this region, in your country, considering the threats from the communist Chinese,” Hegseth told Marcos.
“Friends need to stand shoulder to shoulder to deter conflict, to ensure that there is free navigation whether you call it the South China Sea or the West Philippine Sea,” Hegseth said.
“Peace through strength is a very real thing,” he said, praising the Philippines for standing “very firm” to defend its interests in the contested waters.
Under the former US president Joe Biden’s administration, the US repeatedly warned that it is obligated to help defend the Philippines if Filipino forces, ships or aircraft come under an armed attack in the Pacific, including in the South China Sea.
Hegseth echoed that pledge by expressing “the ironclad commitment” of Trump and him “to the Mutual Defense Treaty and to the partnership.”
Marcos told the US defense chief that by visiting the Philippines first in Asia he “sends a very strong message of the commitment of both our countries to continue to work together to maintain the peace in the Indo-Pacific region, within the South China Sea.”
“We have always understood the principle that the greatest force for peace in this part of the world would be the United States,” Marcos said.
Hegseth’s visit to the Philippines comes a month before the longtime treaty allies hold the “Balikatan,” Tagalog for shoulder to shoulder, their largest annual combat exercises that include live-fire drills.
In recent years, the exercises have been held near the South China Sea and the sea border between the Philippines and Taiwan.
A French-Algerian man went on trial in France on Monday for burning to death his wife in 2021, a case that shocked the public and sparked heavy criticism of police for failing to take adequate measures to protect her. Mounir Boutaa, now 48, stalked his Algerian-born wife Chahinez Daoud following their separation, and even bought a van he parked outside her house near Bordeaux in southwestern France, which he used to watch her without being detected. On May 4, 2021, he attacked her in the street, shot her in both legs, poured gasoline on her and set her on fire. A neighbor hearing
DEATH CONSTANTLY LOOMING: Decades of detention took a major toll on Iwao Hakamada’s mental health, his lawyers describing him as ‘living in a world of fantasy’ A Japanese man wrongly convicted of murder who was the world’s longest-serving death row inmate has been awarded US$1.44 million in compensation, an official said yesterday. The payout represents ￥12,500 (US$83) for each day of the more than four decades that Iwao Hakamada spent in detention, most of it on death row when each day could have been his last. It is a record for compensation of this kind, Japanese media said. The former boxer, now 89, was exonerated last year of a 1966 quadruple murder after a tireless campaign by his sister and others. The case sparked scrutiny of the justice system in
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
RSS