US and Philippine joint combat drills show Trump is not scaling back on South China Sea region

MANILA, Philippines — About 14,000 American and Filipino forces will take part in battle-readiness exercises in the Philippines, including live-fire drills, in a largescale deployment that shows the Trump administration is not scaling back its commitment to help deter aggression in the region, a senior Philippine military official said Tuesday.

The annual joint Balikatan — Tagalog for ''shoulder-to-shoulder'' — exercises between the longtime allies will be held from April 21 to May 9 and involve about 9,000 United States and 5,000 Filipino military personnel. They will involve fighter aircraft, navy ships and an array of weaponry, including a U.S. anti-ship missile system, Philippine Brig. Gen. Michael Logico said. Australia will deploy about 200 military personnel. and Japan and a number of other friendly nations will send smaller military delegations.

China has frowned on such war drills in or near the disputed South China Sea and in northern Philippine provinces close to Taiwan, especially those that involve the U.S. and allied forces that Beijing says aim to contain it and consequently threaten regional stability and peace. Logico said the Balikatan exercises were not aimed at any particular country.

Taiwan is the island democracy which China considers as its own, to be annexed by force if necessary. China conducted large-scale drills in the waters and airspace around Taiwan this month that included an aircraft carrier battle group as it renewed a warning to Taiwan against seeking formal independence.

U.S. Marine Col. Doug Krugman, of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, told reporters most of the joint exercises would be staged within Philippine territory except for multi-nation sea exercises, which he did not specify.

Trump's '' America First '' foreign policy thrust has triggered concerns in Asia a bout the scale and depth of U.S. commitment to maintain a longstanding security presence in the volatile region.

''As you can see, there is no scale back,'' Logico said during a news briefing. ''We're talking about a full battle test."

Tense faceoffs

The exercises will include aerial surveillance, the use of a barrage of artillery and missile fire to sink a mock enemy ship, deploying a U.S. anti-ship missile system and countering the landing of enemy forces on an island.

A U.S. mid-range missile system, which was deployed to the northern Philippines last year, would be used again in the combat exercises, Logico said, without elaborating. China has repeatedly expressed alarm over the missile deployment and demanded that the Philippines pull out the weaponry from its territory which it said could spark an arms race.

A Philippine official told The Associated Press early this year that the U.S. Army's mid-range missile system, which consists of a mobile launcher and at least 16 Standard Missile-6 and Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles, was repositioned from the northern Philippine city of Laoag to a strategic area in a western coastal province facing a disputed South China Sea shoal, where Chinese and Philippine coast guard and navy forces have engaged in tense faceoffs.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth visited Manila in March in his first trip to Asia and said the Trump administration would work with allies to ramp up deterrence against China's aggression in the South China Sea.

The U.S. was not gearing up for war, Hegseth said, while underscoring that peace would be won ''through strength." He said the U.S. would deploy an anti-ship missile system, called the Navy Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System, as well as unmanned sea vessels to enable the allies forces to train together to defend Philippine sovereignty during the Balikatan exercises.

Additionally, the allied forces agreed to stage special operations forces training in Batanes province, a cluster of islands in the northernmost tip of the Philippine archipelago across a sea border from Taiwan, he said.

As well as China and the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also have overlapping claims in the busy waterway, a key global trade route which is also believed to be sitting atop large undersea deposits of gas and oil.

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