00:02It's a great honor to have President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., of the Philippines.
00:07A great family, great family legacy, and highly respected in this country.
00:13I know that because I have many friends in the Philippines, and there's great respect,
00:17or I couldn't say it, so congratulations.
00:19We're going to be talking about trade.
00:21We're going to be talking about war and peace.
00:25They're a very important nation militarily,
00:27and we've had some great drills lately.
00:30We're back with them.
00:32I think I can say that the last administration was not getting along with them too well.
00:38They didn't get along with anybody.
00:40They didn't know.
00:40Honestly, they didn't know what they were doing.
00:43But we have some fantastic military relationships with the Philippines,
00:48and that's been reinstituted.
00:50And, Pete, I would say that you couldn't be happier, right, with the relationship.
00:54So I just want to say it's an honor to have you.
00:59We're going to talk about trade today,
01:00and we're very close to finishing a trade deal.
01:03Big trade deal, actually.
01:05And we do a lot of business with you.
01:07It's a lot of income coming in for both groups,
01:12but I was surprised to see the kind of numbers.
01:14They're very big, and they're going to get bigger under what we're doing and what we're proposing.
01:19And I just want to thank you for being with us.
01:22It's a great honor, you and your representatives, really.
01:24I think they've got to stay in their way, and I think that the...
01:32He's a part of me from achieving...
01:34Well, it's tough.
01:35He's a very tough negotiator.
01:36So far, we're not there because he's negotiating too tough.
01:40In fact, I used to like him better than I do now.
01:42He's too tough.
01:44But we'll probably agree to something.
01:46But he is.
01:47He's a strong negotiator.
01:48He loves your country.
01:49Of course, we're all very happy to be here to once again reaffirm the very strong ties
01:57between the Philippines and the United States, ties that go back over 100 years.
02:03And considering the context in which we live these days, especially in my part of the world,
02:09this has evolved into as important a relationship as is possible to have.
02:15We must remember that the United States is our only treaty partner in the Philippines.
02:24And that has stood us in good stead over the years, certainly through the Second World War.
02:33And the cultural memory of all Filipinos, down to even the schoolchildren,
02:41is that our strongest, closest, most reliable ally has always been the United States.
02:49And that is something that we value, that we are grateful for,
02:54and that we will continue to foster as we go on.
02:58With the leadership of President Trump, I am very confident that we will be able to achieve that.
03:05I think it is worthwhile to remember that it was President Trump who, in his first term,
03:13characterized the relationship between the Philippines and the United States as Ironclan.
03:19And that has been necessarily the case since that time that you made that statement, sir.
03:27And it is something that the Philippines will always hold close to its heart.
03:33Thank you once again.
03:34And we are honored, and it is our great pleasure to be here and to visit with the President of the United States.
03:42Thank you very much.
03:42Thank you, sir.
03:43It is my great honor.
03:46As you say, we are chairing ASEAN in 2026.
03:53There is no need, in a sense, to balance, as you characterized,
03:59to balance our relationship between the United States and China,
04:03simply because our foreign policy is an independent one.
04:06And we are essentially concerned with the defense of our territory and the exercise of our sovereign rights.
04:15Now, whether we do this not alone, we need to do this with our partners.
04:24And again, our strongest partner has always been the United States.
04:28But, of course, we are trying to form coalitions and multilateral relations so that we, those like-minded nations,
04:37who share the same values as we do, who hew to international law, most specifically the UNCLOS,
04:46present that position very clearly to anyone who has intentions of unilaterally changing the world order.
04:57And that is where, that is how we are guided in that situation.
05:01And I don't mind if he gets along with China, because we're getting along with China very well.
05:07Well, it's an honor to be with this gentleman.
05:11You know, I've known him, and I've known his family, actually, but I've known him.
05:15And he's, I assume you're from the Philippines? Are you from the Philippines?
05:18Yes, sir.
05:19It's good. You're very lucky to be from the Philippines, right?
05:22It's a great place.
05:22But, but we're going to have a very good relationship.
05:26I mean, I know you had some problems with another president, and it was not your fault.
05:32It was the president's fault.
05:33And the country was maybe tilting toward, toward China, but we untilted it very, very quickly.
05:40But, you know, you did have, you had a country that was tilting toward China for a period of time.
05:44And I just don't think that would have been good for you.
05:46You could deal with China. You should deal with China.
05:48But, but when I got elected, everything changed, and they came right back to us.
05:54All of the, what we consider part of the modernization of the Philippine military is really as a response to the circumstances that surround the situation around the South China Sea, and now the, what we used to refer to as Asia Pacific, which we have expanded.
06:11China, especially because they can strike deep into mainland China. Thank you.
06:15The Philippines were loaded up with ISIS and a lot of terrorists, and they were at a very, very dangerous point.
06:24And during my administration, we went in and we wiped them out, working with the Philippines, but we wiped them out.
06:31But if we didn't go in, I don't know what would have happened.
06:33I don't know who would be, who would be your president right now.
06:37But we spent a lot of time and a lot of talent on going into the Philippines and wiping out terrorists.
06:43They had a tremendous problem during my administration.
06:47And we cleaned it up, we got them out, and now you really have a good, solid country again.
