📷: Special Assistant to the President for Investment and Economic Affairs Frederick Go and members of the Private Sector Advisory Council brief President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on various concerns of the business sector on March 29, 2023.| PCO
By DIEGO MORRA
Malacanang may be trying to spin the 19% tariff inflicted by the US on Philippine exports during monologue of Donald Trump at the White House as a “great victory” for President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. but for millions of enraged Filipinos in the US and this disaster-ridden country, it is another glaring proof that Marcos Jr. is beholden to the US and could not even secure a decent reduction on the original 20% tariffs.
For Marcos Jr. and his economic klaxon, Secretary Frederick Go, the special assistant for investment and economic affairs, there is no harm in turning a bad thing into a good thing but the fact is that for Trump, the good gets better. For Marcos Jr. and his primus inter pares Go, the bad gets worse. To rub salt to the wound, Go even displayed some fillip, and argued that in imposing the most generous zero tariffs on imported US goods, “the government made sure it would not affect the country’s main agricultural products.”
While Marcos Jr. and Go enthused over Trump’s “beneficence,” they have kept mum on the fact that Japan maneuvered Trump not only into reducing tariffs on Japanese cars to 15% on the promise that Tokyo would plunk in $500-billion investments in the US, on top of Nippon Steel’s huge investment in US Steel to improve its moribund technology and produce quality steel. Japan’s previous promised investments in the US have not materialized and US automakers are grumbling that they will higher tariffs for aluminum, steel and other materials while their Japanese rivals escape with lower tariffs. Trump obviously cut side deals with Japanese corporations.
Marcos Jr. and Go apparently did not examine the position of the European Union (EU), which will slap 30% tariffs on US goods worth $100-biiion if Trump proceeds with slapping his 30% tariffs on the 27-member economic bloc on August 1. The EU enjoys a surplus with the US in trade goods but Washington has a surplus on the proceeds of services, thus cancelling out the deficit in goods. Certainly, the two men should have read the refusal of Thailand to accept zero per cent tariffs on all US goods, citing the need to protect its domestic businesses and agricultural sector, as Bangkok’s The Nation reported. Thailand is taking Trump’s bluff, like the EU, even if Thailand’s current tariff rate could remain at a high 36%, making it less competitive than its ASEAN neighbors.
The rejection is also based on the Most-Favored Nation (MFN) principle, as a zero-tariff deal with the US would force Thailand to offer the same terms to all its other Free Trade Agreement (FTA) partners, which broadens the harm on its economy. Thailand insisted it will not concede to zero per cent tariffs on all US imports, citing the vital need to protect its agricultural sector and domestic businesses while not caving in to the unreal tariffs imposed by Trump through a letter and not through mutual consultations. Thailand has sent a counterproposal to US negotiators and hopes that its tariffs will be cut to a competitive level. Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Pichai Chunhavajira said negotiations will depend on the US response.
“I guarantee to all the Filipinos that the government thoroughly studied the effects of this on our biggest industries. We did not include in the concessions we granted all of the products where we are a significant market producer,” Go said in a Palace press briefing on July 24, 2025. “The government, through the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), really looked at which of our local products we need to protect and we made sure to protect them all,” he added. Go said there will be no zero tariffs on US sugar, corn, rice, chicken, pork and seafood. Yet, these commodities are not major US agricultural products that can be exported to the Philippines.
Moreover, there was no need to open a wide swath of the Philippine to tariff-free US goods. Zero tariffs on automobiles, soy, wheat and pharmaceutical products will unsettle existing trading partners. Under Trump, the agricultural exports have plummeted, with soybean, corn, wheat and meat products losing out to other exporters like Brazil, Argentina, Australia and others. The reason why the US has incurred huge deficits is the fact that it has sent its manufacturing companies overseas to take advantage of law labor costs and tax perks aside from bending the laws of host countries to ensure their unbridled profit repatriation. In truth, the US and Europe had pioneered rare earth extractions but shipped the technology to China and other countries. The US has only one operating rare earth mine. Certainly, the US did not benefit from its globalization stupidity.
In the past five years, the US racked up trade deficits with the Philippines and its official statistics showed that as of May 2025, the US exported $3.68 billion worth of goods but imported $6.47 billion from the Philippines for a deficit of $2.78 billion in the first five months of the year. Last year, the US exported $9.24 billion but imported from the Philippines $14.16 billion, for a deficit of $4.92 billion. The previous year, the deficit was down to $4 billion. In 2022, it was $6.9 billion. In 2021, the US incurred a deficit of $4.7 billion. For the entire period, the lowest deficit was $3.4 billion in 2020. Looking into the trade goods imported by the US, they were mostly microelectronics, electrical products and components of computers, cellular phones and electronic products. They were not finished goods but parts for assembly in the US. By deindustrializing, the US has practically shipped out most commodities that have been traditionally imported by developing countries. Thus, the gigantic trade deficits incurred by the US were caused by its own mistaken economic policy and its embrace of the globalist illusion. The US needs the world than the world needs the US. As Malaysian workers suggested, many countries can trade among themselves using a variety of currencies. In truth, the role of the US dollar as the world reserve currency forces nations to trade with, and invest in, the US.
