Philippines President Says “They” Want to Keep Defense Ties With the United States

President Duterte is now saying that he will maintain the alliance the Philippines has with the US, but will not allow any more military exercises:

 Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said on Wednesday his country would maintain its existing defense treaties and its military alliances, adding to uncertainty and confusion over the status of security ties with the United States.

It an apparent break from a weeks-long torrent of anti-American rhetoric, Duterte suggested defense alliances would continue and his foreign policy was to “realign”, but reiterated joint exercises with U.S. troops, a decades-old tradition, would be stopped.

Part of the re-alignment has been overtures toward China and Russia, which Duterte has spoken highly of and plans to visit in the weeks ahead, starting with China from Oct. 18-21.

“We need not really break or abrogate our existing treaties because they say that it could provide us with the umbrella,” Duterte said in a speech to the coastguard personnel in Manila.

“We will maintain all military alliances because they say we need it for our defense.”

It was not immediately clear who Duterte was attributing the comments to when he mentioned “they” in his justification for maintaining ties.  [Reuters]

You can read more at the link, but could you imagine if Trump was to become President what the back and forth between these two would look like?