MANILA — Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr said on Monday the trilateral agreement signed between his country and the United States and Japan was not directed at anyone, but merely a strengthening of relations between the three.
Marcos met with U.S. President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in the nations’ first trilateral summit in Washington last week.
A death of a Filipino soldier in the South China Sea could be grounds to invoke a mutual defence treaty with the United States, Marcos told foreign correspondents in Manila.
He also said the Philippines had no plans to open and establish more bases that can be accessed by the United States.
— Reporting by Mikhail Flores, Karen Lema; Writing by Kanupriya Kapoor; Editing by John Mair