Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said on Saturday that Donald Trump deserved to be re-elected, praising the U.S. president’s reaction to his decision to end a decades-old military agreement with the United States.
Trump said on Wednesday he did not mind Duterte’s decision to end the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) even as his defense secretary, Mark Esper, called the move “unfortunate” as Washington and its allies press China to abide by “international rules” in Asia.
“It is President Trump’s circumspect and judicious reaction to the termination of the VFA that made President Duterte give the following remarks: ‘President Trump is a good president and he deserves to be re-elected’,” presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo said in a statement.
Trump’s reason was that it “costs money” to keep troops in the Philippines, which is true. Meanwhile, he’s upping the defense budget to unprecedented levels anyway. You tell me what he’s doing because it makes no sense to me.
Trump has frequently expressed a desire to bring U.S. military forces home from decades-long deployments abroad and has strong-armed some allies into paying more for the right to U.S. defense.
In his comments about the VFA on Wednesday, Trump added that he had “a very good” relationship with Duterte.
Since the day after trump’s election, I’ve been writing that while I agree that we are long overdue for a re-assessment of US military deployments and overall national security strategy. It’s been 60 years, the world has rearranged itself. There are many experts who have been thinking this through on all sides of the political divide for some time and I’m sure there are many good ideas that can be implemented.
But allowing an imbecile whose one big idea is that the world has been cheating America and has to pay up to rearrange the world order on that basis is mind-boggling. Trump isn’t just a “disruptor.” He’s a “destructor.” And in a nuclear-armed world that needs to work together to save the planet, nothing could be more dangerous.
Rodrigo Duterte is a psychopath. But he’s probably more savvy than Donald Trump. What could go wrong?