The Marcos-Trump settlements

The Marcos-Trump settlements | Daily Tribune

The Marcos sycophants are not wanting in words to praise the President for what could be the strangest and most lopsided economic and security negotiations with US President Donald Trump.

The highlight of the concluded agreement: the Philippines will impose ZERO tariff on all goods entering the country from the United States of America, while the USA will slap a 19-percent tariff, up by two percentage points, on all Philippine exports to the USA.

They call it reciprocity among friends.

Trump, listening quite interestingly to President Marcos’ almost unintelligible talk, ended the event saying: “We concluded our trade deal whereby the Philippines is going open market with the United States, and ZERO tariffs. The Philippines will pay a 19-percent tariff. In addition, we will work together militarily.”

Turning to Marcos with some degree of astonishment, Trump continued: “It was a great honor to be with the President (Marcos). He is highly respected in his country, as he should be. He is also a very good and tough negotiator.”

The Marcos sycophants lost no time in singing “alleluia” unmindful of the sarcasm that went with “very good and tough negotiator” as Trump described PBBM — after he increased by two points the original 17-percent tariff on the Philippines and got zero tariff for the US in return.

President Marcos flew halfway around the globe while Metro Manila was drowning in flood waters. His bunch of “concerned” propagandists are blaming the floods on the dolomite beach which used to be a veritable garbage dump at Manila Bay. He was there to wangle commitments that were intended to enhance reciprocity between the two countries by reducing tariff and non-tariff barriers on the Philippines and increase the alignment between the United States and the Philippines on economic and national security matters. Wonder how his speech writers will spin the trade agreement to suit the public’s expectations in his State of the Nation Address.

Here is what they are not telling us. The Philippines henceforth shall either eliminate its import licensing requirements or apply automatic import licensing for originating US goods. There will be no such thing as quotas on US goods.

Now for the Philippines’ business and industrial sectors that think there’s big potential to look forward to with the Marcos-Trump agreement, look at this. Tariffs on goods from Philippine manufacturing firms that pay wages that are significantly less than the wages in the equivalent sector in the United States will be adjusted accordingly should there be an increase of such imports to the United States from the Philippines so as not to harm the US industry in the equivalent sector.

And here’s another interesting deal. The Philippines shall allow and facilitate US investment in its territory to explore, mine, extract, refine, process, transport, distribute, and export critical minerals and energy resources. So goodbye to the offer of China of a joint exploration of the West Philippine Sea with the Philippines as the favored partner in a 60/40 arrangement.

In all, the Marcos-Trump agreement practically closes the door for the Philippines to trade with other countries.

Filipino farmers should brace themselves for another tsunami. The US is free to flood the Philippines with US agricultural products. So consumers may have to shift from rice to wheat bread, from bananas to apples, courtesy of the Marcos government.