Trump Mocks Duterte's Decision To End US-Philippines Military Pact: 'We'll Save Money'

President Donald Trump says he doesn't mind Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte unilaterally abrogating a key military agreement that kept China at bay.

“I really don’t mind, if they would like to do that, that’s fine,” said Trump Wednesday at the White House. “We’ll save a lot of money. You know my views are different from other people. I view it as, ‘Thank you very much, we’ll save a lot of money.’”

Trump again said he has a good relationship with Duterte, who's being investigated by the United Nations Human Rights Council for launching a murderous drug war. This four year-long war has seen over 12,000 Filipinos dead. The vast majority of these victims were only suspected of being drug addicts and were not drug pushers.

Duterte set the train of events in motion that led to the abrogation of the 1988 Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) that allows U.S. military aircraft and ships free entry into the Philippines and relaxes visa and passport policies.

Duterte's abrogation will not go into immediate effect because of a 180-day wind-down clause built into the agreement.

Duterte threatened on January 23 to terminate the VFA if the U.S. didn't change its decision to cancel the visa of Sen. Ronald de la Rosa. The Filipino senator is the president's first Philippine National Police chief.

In late 2019, the U.S. Senate passed a resolution invoking the Global Magnitsky Act and calling on Trump to impose sanctions on Filipino officials involved in the arrest and jailing of Duterte critic, Sen. Leila De Lima, and those involved in the Duterte government's bloody anti-drug campaign. The Senate named de la Rosa as one of these persona non-grata and ordered his visa revoked.

Unlike Trump, U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper reacted with dismay to Duterte trashing the VFA. Esper said it's “unfortunate” Duterte has withdrawn the Philippines from the VFA. He called Duterte's action “a move in the wrong direction” if the goal of both the Philippines and the U.S. is to deter China from fulfilling its expansionist plans in the Asia Pacific.