The United States will prioritize life-saving assistance, health, and disaster response in the Philippines under its new foreign assistance program that is better aligned with the two allies’ interests, a senior State Department official said Thursday.
Even as the US under President Donald Trump has overhauled how it provides billions of dollars of aid to countries, which saw huge funding cuts, the Philippines, as a key American ally in the Indo-Pacific, “is at the forefront of this realignment,” said Jonathan Fritz, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs for the US Department of State.
“The amount of funding that is going to foreign assistance has been reduced, no doubt about that. But one thing that we did not end was our humanitarian and life-saving assistance,” Fritz told a small group of journalists, which included GMA News Online, in a briefing.
Trump in February dismantled the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and its satellite offices abroad, halting all its development assistance and relief efforts, citing high costs and that overseas spending must be aligned with his “America First” policy.
After USAID’s closure, Washington’s embassy in Manila established a US Foreign Assistance Section, which, according to Fritz, develops and implements programs “that will save lives and strengthen the Philippines’ resilient and independent economy.”
These programs, he said, are focused on disaster readiness, global health security, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis prevention.
“Foreign assistance will continue to play in advancing our bilateral relationship,” said Fritz, who is in Manila for a two-day visit.
“The United States will continue to provide essential life-saving humanitarian assistance to the Philippines, and our newly established US Foreign Assistance Section here at the embassy in Manila will serve as the chief implementer of our foreign assistance efforts, deepening our commitment to shared prosperity, resilience, and security.”
From disaster preparedness to energy security and from health investments to private sector development, Fritz said US programs “are designed to address critical challenges while strengthening the enduring partnership between our two countries.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in July announced $60 million in fresh funding aimed at reinforcing the Philippines’ energy, maritime, and economic growth programs.
About $15 million from this amount would “catalyze private sector development in the Luzon Economic Corridor,” a US-envisioned growth region in Asia that intends to increase trade and establish an economic hub in the northern Philippines through major infrastructure and other key projects.
This was the US government’s first announcement of new foreign assistance for any country in the world since the beginning of the second Trump administration.
“The realignment of foreign assistance underscores the depth of our commitment to the Philippines as friends, partners, and allies,” Fritz said, adding the aid in July “is absolutely not going to be the last time that we’re going to announce new assistance.”
“Those are not the last assistance dollars that we see coming into the Philippines. Far from it,” he said.
“I think the message that we want to convey to our Filipino friends is, ‘You guys were the first recipients of new assistance funding,’ and I think that will sort of set a mark, and the Philippines will continue to be one of our closest partners in this space going forward.” — VBL, GMA Integrated News
