Meeting with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin III 4/12/2024

Washington, D.C., U.S.A.
April 12, 2024


President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. visits the U.S. Department of Defense at the Pentagon for the second year in a row where he is accorded with an honors ceremony before engaging in a meeting with U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin III on April 12, 2024.

This is their third meeting in a span of two years, with Secretary Austin III visiting Manila last February 2023 and then hosting President Marcos Jr. at the Pentagon in May 2023.

In his opening remarks, the U.S. Defense Secretary states that the alliance between the United States and the Philippines has never been stronger, noting the significant progress achieved since the President’s visit a year ago.

“The strengthened interoperability between our forces and to tackle common challenges, we’ve expanded our operational coordination on land and sea and in the air. And together we stood up to coercive behavior in South China Sea. This level of cooperation is critical to our collective security and to peace and prosperity across the region,” says Secretary Austin III.

He reiterates the ironclad commitment of the U.S. to the defense of the Philippines as announced by President Biden yesterday at the historic Trilateral U.S.-Japan-Philippines Leaders’ Summit, stressing that any armed attack on Philippine armed forces, public vessels or aircraft in the Pacific, including the South China Sea, would invoke U.S. defense commitments under the Mutual Defense Treaty.

“Both of our countries have invested significant time and resources to address our shear security challenges and we’re gonna keep building our partnership. President Biden’s new budget request seeks a hundred and 28 million dollars to execute 36 projects at Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement sites, and that would more than double the amount that we’ve invested in EDCA infrastructure,” he adds, underscoring the strength of the two countries’ alliance.

In response, President Marcos Jr. states that his visit to the Pentagon reaffirms the strength of the relationship between the Philippines and the United States in the face of all the threats and challenges that the two nations have confronted together.

“The Philippines has always been able to look to the United States for support and we hope that this trilateral agreement which we formalized yesterday will be a formalization of an added multilateral support and structure that will make the safety, the peace, and the stability of the South China Sea a reality, and continue to be a reality,” the President says.

He recognizes the significant work done by the two nations’ militaries and governments since his last visit, which he hopes will continue further.

“I view the new agreements and the new partnerships and alliances that we have forged, including the trilateral agreement, not as a response to any particular challenge or threat, but merely a continuing development and evolution of the relationship that we have been fostering over, over a hundred years. And I can only see our two countries getting closer and working together, and in closer coordination so as to be able to provide a continuing defense of international law, and the UNCLOS, especially in the differing claims that we are having to deal with in the South China Sea,” President Marcos Jr. concludes in his remarks.



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