Fact check: Did Philippines 'come right back' to US after Trump’s return?

MANILA, Philippines — Former US President Donald Trump claimed that the Philippines "came right back" to the United States after he won another term in 2024, reversing former President Rodrigo Duterte’s China-leaning policy.

Trump said during a meeting with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Tuesday, July 22 (US time):

"You can deal with China. You should deal with China. But when I got elected, everything changed, and they came right back to us."

Rating: This is misleading.

Major developments in US-Philippines ties under Marcos

It is true that former President Duterte shifted Philippine foreign policy toward closer ties with China and threatened to terminate key security agreements with the US, including the Visiting Forces Agreement.

However, Trump’s suggestion that the Philippines realigned with the US only after his January 2025 return to the White House is not supported by the timeline of security and defense exchanges, agreements and high-level visits and meetings since Marcos assumed presidency.

2022. President Marcos began rebuilding ties with the US, the Philippines' only treaty ally, almost immediately after assuming office in June 2022 — two years before Trump’s second term. Marcos’ first major foreign trip outside Southeast Asia was to New York for the United Nations General Assembly in September 2022, where he met with then-President Joe Biden on the event's sidelines.

Later that year, after then-US Vice President Kamala Harris visited Manila, the Philippines pledged to accelerate the Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement's implementation and resolved to greenlight four new EDCA sites in northern Luzon. 

2023. Washington committed $500 million in aid for the Philippines' military modernization. Marcos then met Biden again in May 2023 at the White House following an expansion in military exercises between the Philippines and the US.

2024. In April, Marcos participated in the landmark trilateral summit in Washington with Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida focusing on South China Sea security. 

Throughout the year, the Philippines and the US militaries would meet in joint exercises in key locations such as Palawan, Batanes and Zambales where China had been growing its presence.

Bottom line: Marcos' policies favoring a realignment to US sharply contrasts with Duterte's anti-US rhetoric, sometimes even dismissing the country's longstanding alliance with the US as "interference." Duterte also threatened to scrap the Visiting Forces Agreement after the US visa of Bato dela Rosa, the chief enforcer of his deadly drug war, was canceled.

During Marcos' term, the Biden administration regularly reiterated America’s “ironclad” defense commitment to the Philippines, well before Trump was elected anew in November 2024.

Why we fact-checked this

Trump’s statement—delivered before the media, top US officials and their Philippine counterparts, and distributed globally—distorts a key aspect of Philippine foreign policy, particularly under the Marcos administration.

It also overstates his influence on Marcos’ diplomatic decisions, which have been fairly consistent in their strong stance against China's aggression in the South China Sea and supportive of widening various partnerships with America and the West.