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Austin schedules a fourth visit to the Philippines
MANILA, Philippines – United States Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will be visiting Manila in the closing weeks of November to “advance security objectives with Philippine leaders and meet with US and Philippine forces.”
The US Department of Defense made the announcement early Wednesday, November 13 (late November 12 in the US). Austin will also be visiting Australia and Fiji, as well as Laos to participate in the ASEAN Defense Ministers’ Meeting (ADMM)-Plus.
This will be Austin’s fourth visit to the Philippines as defense chief. It also comes weeks after former president Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election, and amid speculation over whether the Philippines’ oldest treaty-ally would tweak its current strategy in this part of the world.
Under Austin, and his boss President Joe Biden, defense and security ties between the Philippines and the US have reached new heights.
In the first three years of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s presidency, the Philippines opened four new areas to the US military under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, agreed with Washington on guidelines for the decades-old Mutual Defense Treaty, held bigger iterations of the annual Balikatan exercises, and joined the first-ever leaders’ trilateral meeting between the US, Japan, and the Philippines. It’s also been under Biden, Austin, and State Secretary Antony Blinken that the US pledged $500 million in foreign military financing to the Philippines.
That the relationship between the US and the Philippines has grown closer is backdropped by China turning more aggressive and dominant in the region, especially in the South China Sea, a huge part of which Beijing claims as its own. China also does not accept the 2016 Arbitral Ruling which affirmed the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ) within an area it calls the West Philippine Sea.
Philippine and Chinese maritime personnel have had numerous confrontations at sea, often during Philippine missions to bring supplies to its permanent and temporary outposts in the West Philippine Sea. Filipino fisherfolk have also reported repeated cases of the China Coast Guard harassing them and barring them from fishing in traditional fishing areas. – Rappler.com
