Trade talks between the United States and the Philippines, Trump and Marcos meeting: American tariffs at 19 percent

(Patria) - US President Donald Trump announced a new tariff rate of nineteen percent for goods from the Philippines after, as he said, a "nice visit" by Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to the White House, and said that American goods would not pay tariffs, Reuters reported.

The new tariff rate is just under the twenty percent Trump had threatened earlier this month, but still above the seventeen percent rate set in April when Trump announced what he called reciprocal tariffs for dozens of countries.

This matches the nineteen percent rate announced for Indonesia and exceeds Vietnam's slightly higher rate of twenty percent.

Trump announced the news on his Truth Social platform after meeting with Marcos in the Oval Office, where he had previously signaled that an agreement could be reached during the visit.

"It was a nice visit and we concluded our trade agreement, by which the Philippines will enter the OPEN MARKET with the United States, and ZERO tariffs. The Philippines will pay a tariff of 19%," Trump said, calling Marcos a "very good and tough negotiator".

Trump said the two Pacific allies, who will celebrate eighty years of diplomatic relations next year, would also cooperate militarily, but gave no details.

Marcos, the first Southeast Asian leader to meet Trump in his second term, told reporters at the start of the meeting that the United States is his country's "strongest, closest, and most reliable ally".

He had no comment after Trump's announcement of the new tariff rate.

Trump said that the "very large numbers" in the trade agreement would only grow. The US had a deficit of nearly five billion dollars with the Philippines last year in bilateral goods trade of 23.5 billion dollars.

Trump has reversed global trade flows with tariffs on almost every trading partner, with almost all countries facing a ten percent tariff that took effect in April, and many facing high additional tariffs from August 1. The White House announced further details of the US-Indonesia trade agreement framework on Tuesday, saying negotiators should finalize terms in the coming weeks.

During an event in the Oval Office, Trump said he might visit China on a significant trip "in the not too distant future" and noted that the Philippines had distanced itself from Beijing after his election last November.

"The country might have been leaning towards China, but we corrected it very, very quickly," Trump said.

Philippine officials said Marcos plans to emphasize that Manila must become economically stronger if it is to serve as a truly strong US partner in the Indo-Pacific.