Joshua Kurlantzick
Last week, after hinting at it for some time, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte announced he would terminate a key military pact with the United States. The Visiting Forces Agreement, in place for two decades, allows Washington to keep rotations of American soldiers in the Philippines. As Richard Heydarian has noted, the deal also provides a legal basis for the numerous annual joint military exercises between U.S. and Philippines forces. Tearing it up is the biggest break in bilateral relations at least since Manila forced Washington to give up its Philippine bases in 1991 and 1992. Some analysts, like Heydarian, go further, suggesting it essentially signals the end of the decades-old U.S.-Philippine alliance.
President Donald Trump claimed he didn’t care after the Philippine leader made the break. “I don’t really mind if they would like to do that,” he said after Duterte’s announcement, “it will save a lot of money.” But Secretary of Defense Mark Esper called it “unfortunate.”
Although Duterte often makes bold statements and then recants, he appears determined to go through with this one. He has harbored anti-American sentiments for decades and has grown increasingly infuriated with Washington in the past year. But while Duterte proclaims that shifting away from the U.S., and toward China, will improve the Philippines’ strategic position, axing the Visiting Forces Agreement carries bigger risks for Manila than for Washington. The Philippines’ own defense establishment remains extremely worried about China’s regional strategy and may try to block Duterte. The wider public will also be skeptical. Duterte may still be extremely popular with Filipinos, but Beijing decidedly is not.
The origins of Duterte’s anti-Americanism remain somewhat obscure. He claims he was abused as a child by an American priest, and he grew up in the southern Philippines, where many locals long have resented the U.S. for the brutality of the Philippine–American War at the turn of the 20th century and colonial period that followed. He reportedly was angered by being denied a visa to the U.S. in 2002, apparently for overseeing extrajudicial killings when he served as mayor of Davao.
Duterte may have wanted to jettison the Visiting Forces Agreement, and even the broader U.S.-Philippine alliance, from day one of his presidency in 2016. He threatened to end the pact in late 2016, as the Obama administration criticized Duterte’s brutal war on drugs. From the beginning of his term, Duterte also made clear he wanted to move the Philippines closer to China—he called for a strategic and economic “separation” from the U.S. four years ago—in part to attract massive Chinese aid and investment.
But after the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Trump and Duterte, who have somewhat similar rhetorical styles, seemed to get along relatively smoothly. Trump initially toned down U.S. criticism of Duterte’s drug war. Duterte praised Trump and even crooned to him at a meeting in Manila in 2017. More substantively, the two sides rebuilt some defense ties. In 2019, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo personally assured Philippine leaders that Washington would support Manila in the event of any conflict in the South China Sea. These moves were immediately hailed by Philippine military officials, many of whom have close links with American officers and have spent considerable time in the U.S., often for military training. And, at least initially, China did not come through with promises of tens of billions in aid and investment, while continuing to anger Filipinos by encroaching further into Philippine territorial waters in the South China Sea.
If the termination of the Visiting Forces Agreement goes through, it certainly would hurt the U.S. strategic position in Asia and be a boon for China.
But over the past year, Duterte’s relations with Washington have gotten markedly worse, while Beijing has stepped up its aid and investment in the Philippines, pouring in funds for airports, dams and telecommunications infrastructure. The U.S. Senate passed legislation seeking sanctions on Philippine leaders linked to extrajudicial killings and to the imprisonment of Leila de Lima, an opposition senator; the State Department also revoked a visa for Ronald dela Rosa, a former Philippine national police chief and current senator who has played a central role in the drug war. Infuriated, Duterte banned two U.S. senators from a visit to the Philippines, instructed his Cabinet ministers not to visit the U.S., vowed not to attend the U.S.-ASEAN summit planned for Las Vegas in March—and placed the Visiting Forces Agreement firmly in his sights.
Duterte did all this despite opposition from his Cabinet, many leading politicians and the military brass. His own justice secretary, Menardo Guevarra, announced last week that ending the Visiting Forces Agreement will make the U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty “a hollow agreement” and would undermine the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement signed by the two sides in 2014. In early February, Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. warned the Senate in Manila that ending the Visiting Forces Agreement would be a major mistake.
If the termination goes through, it certainly would hurt the U.S. strategic position in Asia and be a boon for China. The agreement helps solidify American ties with an important military partner in Southeast Asia and sends an important signal of U.S. resistance to Beijing’s actions in the South China Sea. But the U.S. is drawing closer to other countries in the region, like Vietnam, that share Washington’s skepticism of China and could become essential partners—even though Hanoi is far from becoming a U.S. treaty ally. Washington could come to rely more on its treaty alliance with Thailand and growing links with Singapore and India.
But Duterte’s decision will endanger the Philippines even more. Sharply reduced links with the U.S. military will leave Manila with few true friends as China pushes closer into Philippine waters. Duterte has already infuriated neighboring countries that want to stand up to Beijing, like Vietnam, with his willingness to tolerate Chinese provocations and territorial claims in the South China Sea. Other regional powers, like Australia, Japan and India, either do not have the resources to back up the Philippines in case of real conflict, or do not trust Duterte enough to work closely with him. And there are no signs that, even with Duterte courting Beijing for investment, China will halt its steady encroachment on Philippine territory. Just last year, Beijing sank a Philippine fishing boat in the South China Sea, and sent vessels to swarm the area around Philippine-occupied Thitu island in the disputed Spratly chain.
The end of the Visiting Forces Agreement carries other risks for Manila, too. Without the deal, it could be much harder for the U.S. to help the Philippines during natural disasters, which are common in the archipelago. As Heydarian notes, during the devastating 2013 Haiyan typhoon, Washington sent some 8,000 troops to help with relief efforts—a dispatch that was facilitated by the Visiting Forces Agreement. Overall, the pact has facilitated Washington sending Manila over $1 billion in military funding, aid and other assistance between 2016 and 2019 alone; a drawdown in those funds could hinder counterterrorism operations in the southern Philippines as well.
Given these dangers, the military establishment in Manila may try to stall the agreement’s death. The termination does not go into effect, in reality, for six months— potentially time for military leaders, members of Duterte’s Cabinet and politicians to push back, drawing on anti-China sentiment among the Filipino public and arguments that the decision would imperil the country. According to one recent poll by the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, 87 percent of Filipinos said they were worried about China’s growing regional influence. Some Philippine senators even believe the country’s Supreme Court must weigh in on whether Duterte can withdraw from the deal, although the court is stacked with Duterte allies.
They are unlikely to stop him. Duterte’s intentions have been clear for years, and he regularly ignores his Cabinet members and makes policy choices because of personal grievances. After all, several Philippine agencies were going to formally review the Visiting Forces Agreement anyway, but Duterte couldn’t even wait for that.
Joshua Kurlantzick is senior fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations.
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