{"id":61905,"date":"2020-02-13T13:36:45","date_gmt":"2020-02-13T05:36:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=61905"},"modified":"2020-02-13T13:36:47","modified_gmt":"2020-02-13T05:36:47","slug":"pres-trump-brushes-aside-philippines-decision-to-end-military-pact-with-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=61905","title":{"rendered":"Pres Trump brushes aside Philippines’ decision to end military pact with US"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON, Feb 13 (NNN-AGENCIES) — US\u00a0President Donald Trump brushed aside the decision of Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte to\u00a0end a decades-old military agreement with United States<\/a>, saying he didn’t really mind and it would save money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Duterte announced the termination of the two-decade-old Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) on Tuesday, a move US\u00a0Defence Secretary Mark Esper called “unfortunate.” The decision will take effect in 180 days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked whether he would try to persuade Duterte to reconsider, Trump told reporters at the White House: “Well I never minded that very much to be honest. We helped the Philippines very much. We helped them defeat ISIS … I don’t really mind if they would like to do that, it will save a lot of money. My views are different from others.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump said he had “a very good” relationship with Duterte and added: “We’ll see what happens.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Duterte’s decision, sparked by the revocation of a US visa held by a former police chief who led his bloody war on drugs<\/a>, could complicate US military interests in the Asia-Pacific region as China’s ambitions rise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The VFA is important to the overall US-Philippines alliance and sets out rules for US\u00a0soldiers operating in the Philippines. It underpins what Washington has called an “ironclad” relationship despite Duterte’s complaints about US\u00a0hypocrisy, ill-treatment and ageing weapons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ending the VFA could hurt Washington’s future interests in maintaining an Asia-Pacific troop presence amid friction over the presence of US\u00a0personnel in Japan and South Korea and security concerns about China and North Korea. — NNN-AGENCIESe<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON, Feb 13 (NNN-AGENCIES) — US\u00a0President Donald Trump brushed aside the decision of Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte to\u00a0end a decades-old military agreement with United States, saying he didn’t really mind and it would save money. Duterte announced the termination of the two-decade-old Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) on Tuesday, a move US\u00a0Defence Secretary Mark Esper called […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[208,215],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61905"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61905\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}