Bongbong in Washington

The last time a Philippine president named Marcos visited Washington, D.C. was in September of 1982 when strongman Ferdinand Marcos Sr. met with Ronald Reagan in the White House on an official state visit.

Back then, the main topic of negotiation was the US military bases agreement (MBA) that was expiring in January 1984. Marcos was reportedly seeking to increase the $500-million aid package to $2 billion over five years.

Marcos waltzed into the White House carrying a trump card — military and economic concessions from his good friend, Ronald Reagan, in exchange for the continued use of Clark Air Base and Subic Bay Naval Base, the largest US military installations in Asia at the time.

Much can be said about exactly how important those bases were to America’s strategic interests in the 1980s. The United States was overwhelmingly focused on winning the Cold War against its superpower nemesis, the USSR. China was just breaking out of decades of isolation, and America’s Indo-Pacific strategy, as we understand it today, was not yet a formalized concept.

Further, the US still had its military installations in South Korea and Japan, and on its island territory, Guam.

So when the bases agreement was negotiated in 1984, Marcos got only $900 million over five years. When it was time for renegotiations in 1989, Marcos had already been deposed and Cory was president. Long story short, when it was time for a new deal, the Philippine Senate, emboldened with nationalistic fervor, voted not to renew. The eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in 1991 simply rendered everything moot, sending the Americans packing after both bases were buried in volcanic ash.

Fast forward four decades to July 2025. The late dictator’s son, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., came to Washington to meet with Donald Trump. There wasn’t any pomp and pageantry; there was no state dinner at the White House. Bongbong came to talk trade and tariffs.

In that closed-door meeting in the Oval Office, Bongbong managed to reduce Trump’s tariff on Philippine exports to the US from 20 percent to 19 percent while acceding to zero tariff on US automobile imports, potentially delivering a fatal blow to what remains of the domestic auto industry.

His critics in Manila were outraged. Trump said the young Marcos was a “very good and tough negotiator” during their “beautiful visit.” His kind of negotiator indeed. A day later, the Japanese were able to reduce their tariff from the threatened 25 percent to 15 percent.

With no bases agreement to negotiate, Bongbong’s briefcase was light and floated like a feather caught in a breeze. Trump avoided talking about anything substantive on military cooperation or military aid, saying only that the two countries “would also work together militarily.”

With the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) signed in 2014 on autopilot, with no fixed expiration date, the United States has guaranteed use of military installations in the Philippines, nine facilities at last count.

In its pivot to Asia at the start of President Barack Obama’s term, the United States had put a premium on a comprehensive Indo-Pacific geopolitical strategy to counter China’s rising influence in Asia and the world.

The Philippines plays a pivotal role in that strategy, but its leadership continues to undervalue its importance, or it simply does not know how to leverage it.

I am not a fan of the late dictator, but you have to wonder what he would have done with a trump card that his son Bongbong now possesses, and how he would have laughed at the 1-percent junior brought back home to Manila in his empty briefcase.