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Manuel L. Quezon III
Manila Feels its Way in the Latest Age of Trump
07 Feb 2025
Manila is yet again engaging in a familiar and generations-old exercise of trying to divine the country’s perch in the pecking order of Washington’s priorities. It is an exercise that perennially shocks Filipinos when they’re reminded that they’re hardly ever top of mind for their former colonial ruler. This year, however, is a particularly fraught time.
Eighty years separates the end of World War Two in the Philippines – marked by the horrific Battle of Manila, which devastated the capital and cost 100,000 civilian lives – and the transition from Joe Biden to the second Donald Trump administration. In both cases, the Philippines has been seized with a kind of existential dread over the question of American interest and intent. In 1945, Filipinos, after years of enemy occupation and the crushing cost of liberation, wondered if veterans and civilians would receive the benefits and assistance pledged by Franklin D. Roosevelt, and be given American security support to uphold their promised independence in 1946. After all, there was a new president, Harry Truman, who had no deep ties to the Philippines. Similarly, after the embrace of the Philippine cause by Joe Biden, the return of Trump leads to a twofold concern: would security and the economy be helped or hindered?
Literally on the eve of the transition to a new administration, Vice President Kamala Harris called President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to assure him of continuing American support. A lame duck pledge won’t cut it, of course, but Marcos Jr. has the benefit of a cousin, Jose Manuel “Babes” Romualdez, who happens not only to be his ambassador to the Washington, but who spent decades as a kind of Philippine minder to a whole slew of American ambassadors to the Philippines. Romualdez is the most seasoned American hand to be ambassador since the legendary Carlos P. Romulo, and among other things, he was Philippine ambassador during the first Trump term.
Romualdez sent all the right signals after the election by making a beeline for Mar-a-Lago to play golf and pay a courtesy call on the president-elect; he later said that he reminded Trump that he had met President Marcos himself “in New York many years ago with his mother, former First lady Imelda Marcos.” Romualdez thus assured Marcos that he remained in the good graces of the president-elect.
What’s more, as a cognoscenti of Capitol Hill, Romualdez said there were clear signs of administration intent. He enumerated them in a recent column and concluded that Manila could rely on people in the administration understanding the importance of the Philippines and keeping up American support for military modernization and the government’s resistance to Chinese bullying in the South China Sea.
At the same time, it could be intuited that some signals would have to be given to show Trump that Manila was willing to pay its fair share, so to speak, for American protection. In what both capitals can say is a highly convenient coincidence, the American transition coincides with the Philippines’ budget season when the Armed Forces of the Philippines issued a whole slew of purchase requests, sending the message that Filipinos were fiscally fit and politically able to take on more responsibility for defense.
Romualdez also highlighted the benefits of the State Department being under Marco Rubio, whom the ambassador described as “sympathetic to the Philippines, visiting Tacloban City in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan in January 2014 and vowing more aid for rehabilitation efforts.” And indeed, in his confirmation hearing, Rubio spoke warmly of the Philippines. Romualdez also noted he was aware of US domestic political concerns. In media interviews following the Trump victory, he advised those of his countrymen illegally residing in the US “that if there is no legal path for them to stay in the US, they have to seriously start thinking about going back home – voluntarily, so they can still have a chance to come back at some point legally.” Out of a universe of 11 million illegal immigrants in the US, according to American estimates, 370,000 are Filipinos, which most Filipinos would think is surely a serious underestimation.
Even in terms of Trump’s muscular approach to tariffs. Romualdez seemed confident: as a net importer of foreign goods, the Philippines is not a problem for Washington. The Philippine position seems to be that encouraging Philippine investment in the US would be good public relations. According to Romualdez, “Armscor Global Defense… has joint ventures in the United States, with facilities in Nevada, Montana and Utah. This is an example of a quid pro quo business engagement since it will be beneficial to both the US and the Philippines – which is how we are going to approach our economic diplomacy agenda with the Trump administration.”
The Luzon Economic Corridor, which links Central Luzon to Metro Manila, was also summarized by the ambassador as “a partnership between the Philippines, Japan and the United States to develop infrastructure projects such as railways, port modernization and upgrades, semiconductor supply chains and others aimed at driving economic growth.” This may be more problematic, precisely because the Philippines may not be exempt from the tariff mania of Trump.
Most of all, as the opening weeks of Trump 2.0 reveals, the level of uncertainty, and thus, of risk, has increased exponentially, globally, because much of what Trump said he would do, was discounted as talking big – until Trump started doing it, and at warp speed. A freeze on global aid, grants and assistance, plus the hobbling, and then, essentially, dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), has left American alliances dazed and confused. The Philippines is no exception.
Suddenly on hold is roughly half a billion dollars in military assistance and over a hundred million dollars in NGO-oriented USAID assistance. From Washington, Romualdez has tried to make soothing reassurances that these are all temporary hiccups. He has been echoed by Philippine Secretary of National Defense Gilbert Teodoro, who’s read out of a recent conversation with his American counterpart, Pete Hegseth, made no mention of the restoration of suspended aid; even the head of the Philippine National Economic Development Authority said the evaporation of USAID funding isn’t necessarily devastating as there are multilateral institutions to call on.
Among Filipino business leaders, the main fallout from Trump 2.0 has been viewed through the lens of deportations, which would impact dollar remittances to the country, and the possible scaling back of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), which could also affect US dollar inflows into the economy. Even here, however, a recent decision by JP Morgan to expand its back end operations in the country is being taken as a sign of confidence in the maintenance of the BPO status quo, a major business for the Philippines.
Completely unforeseen is the effect of not just scaling back, but totally gutting, USAID programs which diminishes both American soft power and also handicaps Philippine NGOs in conflict-prone areas such as Mindanao. But what is catastrophic for civil society will cause hardly a shrug in elite political and business circles. After all, Manila’s hawkish approach to China over the South China Sea dispute feels reassuring to some in terms of American intent and Washington’s willingness to maintain the security umbrella over the Philippines.
