Marcos Leaves Empty-Handed In Face-To-Face With Trump

2025-07-22 09:01:32

(MENAFN- Asia Times) MANILA – Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr has met with his US counterpart Donald Trump in Washington, securing pledges for American defense support against China in a long-standing dispute but failing in his quest to significantly cut new US tariffs.

Before heading into their one-on-one meeting at the White House, both leaders reaffirmed the two sides'“good relationship”, underscored by a long-time mutual defense treaty that binds both nations to coming to each other's aid in times of foreign aggression.

“We're going to talk about trade today and we are very close to finishing a trade deal, a big trade deal actually,” Trump told reporters at the start of his meeting with Marcos on Tuesday (US Time), according to transcripts released here.

However, after the meeting, Trump announced on Truth Social that the Philippines had only received a slight change in the planned tariffs on its goods to the US, one of its major trading partners.

“We concluded our Trade Deal, whereby The Philippines is going OPEN MARKET with the United States, and ZERO Tariffs. The Philippines will pay a 19% Tariff,” Trump wrote. This is just 1% lower than what he had earlier threatened, and it remains to be seen how this would impact the Philippines, where many American companies also source their goods.

The two countries did“a lot of business” with each other, Trump said, saying he was surprised to see what he called“very big numbers” that would only grow under a trade agreement.

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