📷Altermidya
Whether it will be Kamala Harris or Donald Trump who wins in the US presidential elections, we expect that US foreign policy regarding the Philippines will remain largely unchanged.
We do not see an end to US military exercises and the pre-positioning of weapons in the country. We do not foresee an end to the VFA and EDCA and the cold-war relic that is the Mutual Defense Treaty under both Harris or Trump.
US policies in Asia, especially regarding China, are the result of the US economic crisis. The US wants to be the main economic and military power and has sought dominance in this region. China is a rising imperialist power with its own economic and military agenda threatening US economic interests . Whether it’s Harris or Trump, the economic and military contradictions between the two super-powers will remain. The US is not likely to end its policy of encirclement of China and will continue to use the Philippines as a launching pad for its own geopolitical intervention . The US has already prepositioned a missile system in the northern part of the Philippines, the first time a weapons system of the sort has been placed on Philippine soil since the US bases were kicked out in 1991.
We also do not see any meaningful shift when it comes to US military aid to the Philippines despite the terrible human rights track record of the country. Military aid has been the go-to means of the US to justify its prolonged military presence in the Philippines. Human rights groups have objected to US military aid because these are being used to commit human rights violations in the course of counter-insurgency campaigns. The US has not made military aid contingent on compliance with international human rights standards, as seen from the US support for the genocide in Gaza.
Our status as a US neocolony will remain whether it’s a Democrat or Republican who runs the White House. There should be no illusions that any meaningful change will be coming soon. The only question is how bad will the US crisis get under a new US president and how the drive to address the crisis will continue to affect countries like the Philippines.
As to China, it is important that the Philippines not tie its foreign policy to that of the US. If we are to uphold our national interests in the West Philippine Sea and exercise our sovereign rights in our EEZ, we must do so apart from or not entangled with US geopolitical interests. The US remains an imperialist power with its own goals in the region which are not identical to Philippine interests. We should pursue a peaceful resolution to the conflict in the WPS and refrain from allowing ourselves to be used in the power-play of imperialists like the US or China.
Folks in the US are of course well within their rights to choose whom to vote for. That is their prerogative based on their objective situation . But from the POV of people affected by US foreign policy, from Palestine to the Philippines, there’s really not much hope that things will change fundamentally, whatever the outcome may be.
Whatever happens after November 5, continue to fight US imperialism and struggle for national and social liberation. ###
