BILATERAL talks between President Rodrigo Duterte and United States President Donald Trump are being hammered out as the world’s attention turns toward Southeast Asia with its hosting of two high-level conferences this November.
“Definitely, we want it, they want it,” Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano told Palace reporters in a chance interview at Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig City Wednesday night.
Cayetano said both US and Philippine governments are still coordinating whether to hold the talks in Manila, during the sidelines of the 30th Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit, or at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Economic Leaders’ meeting in Vietnam.
Trade and terrorism will be high on the agenda for Trump and other world leaders who are set to visit Manila and the region, after Duterte set the tone for the discussions during the 31st Asean Summit, which will be chaired by the Philippines.
“The schedules are still all very complicated because of the related meetings [that will be attended by] other nations and everyone,” Cayetano said.
“But I’m sure they’ll be able to speak [with each other] because our relationship [with the US] is really important. And President Trump and President Duterte like each other,” he added.
Trump is set to meet with several key Asian leaders next month, including the controversial Philippine strongman, on a tour otherwise dominated by efforts to isolate North Korea.
The White House has announced Trump’s visit to Manila from Nov. 12 to 13 to participate in the Asean meetings. The US President’s first Asian tour will take him to Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines.
Describing himself as a “hardliner,” Duterte said Thursday something must be done amid various issues concerning Southeast Asia.
“I wish more talks to come, [more] trade, and if there is one thing that must be immediately solved, it is the problem of the Moluccas,” Duterte told diplomats, referring the threats of piracy in the Malacca Strait, the narrow stretch of water between Malaysia and Indonesia’s Sumatra Island.
Duterte said that he would challenge Asean leaders to enhance trade facilitation between member-states and create a collective environment similar to what the 28-member European Union has.
“One is the not-so-much active cooperation between the Asean and the matters of trade,” the President noted during the High Level Forum on the Asean at 50.
“We have to do more and there will be a lot of talks about this in the days to come, and I will challenge the leaders of the Asean in our meeting—in our coming meeting in November. If EU can do it, the world, why can’t we?” he added.
Duterte likewise stressed that the country’s approach in resolving its territorial row with China and other claimants in the West Philippine Sea, or South China Sea, was the right thing to do.
“The South China Sea is one [issue to be discussed], but we are not in a hurry. And as a matter of fact, what we did was really the correct step and to avoid a confrontational talk with the almost all of the parties concerned, just ask for a limited time to solve the problem and sharing of the resources if it could be done,” he added.
The United States has important trade ties in the region, but Trump’s economic agenda will be overshadowed by the major foreign policy crisis of his presidency so far: The North Korean standoff.
Duterte also noted that concerns involving the Korean peninsula were “threatening the region.”
He lamented that there are “so many conditions or colatillas” that affect the entire package of the Philippines’ trade relations “with almost everybody.”
Duterte noted that the Moluccas, an historical maritime supply route, has been marred by issues of terrorism and piracy.
“If I get to talk with the leaders there is one thing I want to talk out—blast them out of the seas to keep our shipping lanes safe,” he said.
“There must be something drastic … action [that must be made] for a very dangerous situation,” Duterte said.
“Otherwise, that part of the sea lane between Australia and going up north, Indonesia and going up to the Philippines will be going to suffer,” he added.