U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will visit the Philippines later this week, the first stop on a regional tour that will also take him to Hawai’i, Guam, and Japan and aimed at bolstering relations with “like-minded countries.”
Hegseth will visit Manila on March 28-29, to “advance security objectives with Philippine leaders and meet with U.S. and Philippine forces,” Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell said on Friday.
In the Philippines, the defense secretary will meet his Philippine counterpart, Gilberto Teodoro, and President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the Associated Press reported on Saturday. It quoted Philippine Ambassador to the U.S. Jose Manuel Romualdez as saying that the talks will touch on China’s increasingly brash and assertive actions in the South China Sea and “more significant support” for Philippine security forces from the U.S. government.
The trip comes as the U.S. and Philippine militaries prepare for the Balikatan military exercises, which will be held in the Philippines from April 21 to May 9.
Ten thousand U.S. troops will participate in the drills, which this year mark their 40th anniversary, alongside 6,000 service members from the Philippines, Australia and Japan, he said. Personnel from Canada, France, South Korea, and the United Kingdom will also take part.
While the size of the exercises is slightly down on the 2023 iteration, which saw the involvement of more than 17,600 troops, this year’s exercise will involve a greater display of kinetic power.
The Philippine Air Force will reportedly deploy its Spyder mobile air defense systems, which it purchased from Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defense Systems in 2022. The Philippine Navy also plans to fire its Rafael Spike NLOS missiles, South Korean C-Star ship-launched surface-to-surface missiles, and French-made Mistral 3 surface-to-air missiles. Most notably, the exercise will involve a “full battle test,” which will include live-fire missile tests and the sinking of a decommissioned World War II-era Philippine Navy vessel, the South China Morning Post reported.
However, despite some speculation, the U.S. Army will reportedly not conduct a live-fire operation of its intermediate-range Typhon missile system, which it transported to the Philippines ahead of last year’s Balikatan exercise. The Philippines has since expressed a desire to acquire the missile system, the presence of which in the country has been hotly contested by the Chinese government. The missile system has not yet been fired in the Philippines, and it is unclear how long it will remain there – or whether the two nations might soon negotiate its transfer to the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
The fact that the Philippines is the first of Washington’s Asian allies that Hegseth will visit (his visit to Japan will follow immediately afterward) underscores the likelihood that the country remains a priority partner for the U.S., despite the radical shifts undertaken by the Trump administration since it took office in January. The country has already been exempted from the Trump administration’s sweeping foreign aid bans, and officials including Romualdez and Teodoro have both expressed confidence that the alliance will survive the worst of the Trumpian whirlwind.
In his first telephone talk with Teodoro on February 5, Hegseth “reaffirmed the ironclad U.S. commitment to the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty and its importance for maintaining a secure and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” as a Pentagon spokesperson said at the time. The spokesperson added that Hegseth and Teodoro discussed the importance of re-establishing deterrence in the South China Sea, including by working with allies and partners.” They also “discussed enhancing the capability and capacity of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.”
Speaking to the AP, Romualdez said that Hegseth’s upcoming trip to Manila sent “a strong message to China” about the “solid” state of relations between the Philippines.
