Expanded PH-US partnership

Ample proof that Philippine-American relations are on the upswing and expected to grow even stronger in the years ahead is the invitation extended by US President Joe Biden to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to join a three-way summit in Washington, DC with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in April.

This is the first such trilateral summit that, according to the White House, would discuss a “shared vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific” and focus on enhancing economic and security ties amid rising tensions with China.

The common denominator of the Philippines and Japan is that we are both staunch US allies. We also have territorial disputes with China.

We have to deal firmly with Beijing’s increasingly aggressive actions in the West Philippine Sea, while Tokyo has to contend with China’s claim over the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea.

The trilateral meeting in April will therefore be highly anticipated—and closely monitored by Beijing, definitely—as the Biden administration is expected to reiterate its ‘ironclad’ guarantee of full support for our joint efforts to resist China’s territorial ambitions in the region.

Biden and Marcos met in the White House last year where they discussed ways to further expand the Philippine-US alliance, including strengthening their defense cooperation.

Among the agreements they forged last year were the planned conclusion of a key intelligence sharing pact and the adoption of bilateral defense guidelines aimed at institutionalizing “key bilateral priorities, mechanisms and processes to deepen alliance cooperation and interoperability across land, sea, air, space and cyberspace.”

Just this week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with President Marcos to discuss ways to advance the partnership of both countries, particularly in the economic sphere, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs.

The American official’s visit follows a week after the United States sent a high-level trade and investment mission to the Philippines.

We expect the Philippines to benefit from even closer ties with Washington in all aspects, from the political and diplomatic to the economic and defense spheres in the years ahead, united in a shared commitment to democratic principles and sustained economic advance based on mutual benefit and mutual trust.

With China’s increasing assertiveness in enforcing its claim over practically the whole of the South China Sea on the basis of a mythical ‘ten-dash line,’ we need to strengthen defense cooperation with both the US and Japan to protect our national sovereignty and territorial integrity.

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