Is Philippines getting short end of US tariff stick? 19% rate slammed as ‘worst insult'
Ferdinand Marcos Jnr as a 'significant achievement' has been slammed by critics at home as the 'worst insult' after Manila secured only a one percentage point tariff cut from Washington while granting American goods duty-free access.
Marcos, the first Southeast Asian leader to be hosted by President Donald Trump since his return to the White House, visited the US capital from Sunday to Tuesday for a series of talks centred on trade and security.
The trip came as Manila sought to defuse tensions over Trump's sweeping 'Liberation Day' tariff policy, which had initially imposed a 17 per cent duty on Philippine exports in April before increasing it to 20 per cent earlier this month.
The outcome – a 19 per cent tariff rate on Philippine goods alongside zero tariffs for US exports – was unveiled by Trump on his Truth Social account after holding a joint press conference at the White House.
Marcos defended the result, insisting the concession was more significant than it appeared.
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Photo: Planet Labs In practice this means it takes at least two Patriot interceptors for every enemy missile fired. As is well known, the US is in short supply of Patriot, which the US, its allies and friends rely on for air defense. This has caused significant controversy in connection with supplies of Patriots for Ukraine. The Pentagon has made clear that stockpiles are at a critical level and it does not want to deplete them further in support of Ukraine. Instead, at President Donald Trump's initiative, Germany has agreed to supply Patriot interceptors (model unclear, as there are different Patriot interceptors, the most important PAC-3), but Germany does not have enough. The German Defense Minister, Boris Pistorius, is negotiating with his European counterparts, to 'find' the missiles Ukraine needs. Allegedly, Germany will pick up the bill for replacing them later., but the Germans now want US guarantees. The JINSA paper also points out that Israel destroyed some 250 Iranian missile launchers (only after they fired their missiles). This is a luxury that Ukraine, for example, does not have and it is a challenge for the US and its Pacific allies, because finding and destroying adversary launchers (e.g., potentially China's or Russia's) is a far bigger challenge than Iran. The US and Israeli ability to manufacture air defense missiles is inadequate against Russian, Chinese, Iranian and maybe North Korean factories' ability to produce ballistic missiles. What is true for the defense of Israel, supplementation of Israel's local air defenses with US assets, also is true for Europe and Asia. NATO has very limited air defenses, well below what Israel has but a need to protect a massively bigger territory. The United States' Asian allies Japan and South Korea also have limited air defenses, mainly relying on their own Patriot systems or on Patriot plus AEGIS in the case of Japan. Taiwan has Patriot PAC-3, but not enough systems or missiles. The US, at present, would find it extremely difficult to backstop NATO against a massive attack by Russia, or to support Japan and South Korea, let alone Taiwan, with de minimis stockpiles and too few systems. There is THAAD in Korea, but not in Japan or Taiwan. Japan even rejected AEGIS Ashore to protect its territory, although it does have four AEGIS-equipped ships. Taiwan publicly rejected THAAD, an incredibly foolish move. To make a long story short, the US and its allies are not well prepared against saturation missile attacks and don't have enough coverage to protect military installations, command and control centers, airfields, naval ports or even logistic centers and factories (putting aside attacks focused on critical infrastructure, as we see on a daily basis in Ukraine). It should be obvious that the US industrial base is not ready for the challenge, that there are not enough factories and that efficiency (understood in terms of output) is low. The Pentagon is still relying on ordering missile production from existing factories rather than really trying to reform the manufacturing infrastructure so we can match the output of Russia, China or even Iran. Stephen Bryen, a special correspondent to Asia Times and a former US deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, also previously served as executive director of the JINSA think tank. This article, which originally appeared in his Substack newsletter Weapons and Strategy, is republished with permission.
