The Philippine government assured that despite its support of the planned call for a unified response among ASEAN member states on US President Donald Trump’s sweeping export tariffs, it will not join any retaliation move against the world’s superpower nation.

“There’s no retaliation, we don’t have any of those. We want to deal with this positively,” said Trade Secretary Cristina Roque in an ambush interview at the sidelines of the opening of the National Food Fair at SM Megamall, Mandaluyong City on Wednesday.

On Wednesday, former World Trade Organization (WTO) director-general Supachai Panitchpakdi urged Southeast Asian countries to band together to deal with the U.S. "reciprocal" tariff policy, as reported by Nikkei Asia on Wednesday.

Supachai Panitchpakdi, who led the WTO from 2002 to 2005 and was Thailand's deputy prime minister and commerce minister, said that “ASEAN members are likely to suffer serious damage from the U.S. tariffs and are probably not strong enough economically to retaliate by raising their tariffs on U.S. imports.”

The Philippines gained the second-lowest imposed tariffs of 17 percent, while its neighboring countries such as Vietnam (46%), Thailand (36%), Indonesia (32%), and Malaysia (24%) face significantly higher tariffs.

Malaysian Prime Minister and ASEAN bloc president Anwar Ibrahim earlier said he would seek this week to forge a united ASEAN response to the sweeping reciprocal tariffs announced by the U.S. last week.

The Malaysian official said he would discuss the matter with several of his counterparts in the regional bloc, including Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

Anwar stressed that Southeast Asian countries are among the hardest hit by the new U.S. measures, asserting that the sweeping tariffs mark only "the beginning of greater challenges" in the external economic environment.

Economic team meeting

Roque said a meeting between members of the economic team will happen on 10 April, including her, Finance Secretary Ralph Recto, National Economic and Development Authority Secretary Arsenio Balisacan, and Special Assistant to the President for Investment and Economic Affairs, Secretary Frederick Go, who will join the meeting remotely because he is in South Korea, to discuss plans on how they will mitigate matters concerning the imposed tariffs.

“We just want to discuss also the possibilities on how we can strengthen the trade if they (US) will lower down the tariff or how the other countries are reaching out to us to unite to be able to negotiate the imposed tariff. But for us, we accept the 17 percent and we’ll see how it goes from there. I need to talk to my (US) counterpart to clear things out. For now, we are not sure of course that the U.S. will lower their tariff for us,” Roque stressed.

Benefitting banana industry

Roque still treats 17 percent reciprocal tariffs as an advantage, especially for Philippine banana exports.

“Now that we have much lower tariffs, let’s consider that as an opportunity, particularly for our dried mangoes. Our direct competitor for that is Cambodia, which has 49 percent reciprocal tariffs and that’s a major edge for us. Looking at it, we are still in a better place compared to our ASEAN neighbors,” she said.

She said the Philippines will do its best for the U.S. to lower the tariffs, adding that the country remains optimistic about pursuing a U.S.-Philippines Free Trade Agreement with the world’s superpower nation.

“That’s what we want to pursue not only with the U.S. but with other countries such as South America, the Middle East, and Asia for so many products that are in demand that we have. You know when you do an FTA, we will reap a lot of benefits,” she said.