The White House reminded Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday that his country asked for the U.S. special forces trainers for Filipino troops that he is now saying “have to go” – the second time in a week President Obama’s top aides have chided the new leader for his “colorful” comments.
Duterte on Monday called for the withdrawal of U.S. military from a southern area of his country out of worries that the American troop presence could undermine his military’s offenses against Islamic militants, according to a report in Yahoo News. But the White House said the Philippines asked for those troops to be there.
“What is true about the U.S. military presence in the Philippines is that this presence has been in the Philippines for a number of years at the request of leaders of that country,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters at his daily briefing Monday.
Earnest also said he is not surprised to hear Duterte calling for the ejection of U.S. troops from his country after last week’s flap over the Filipino president calling Obama a “son of a bitch,” and the decision by the White House to cancel a planned meeting between the two.
“Surprise is not the word I would choose, primarily because of the tendency of this individual to make some rather colorful comments,” Earnest said.
U.S. special forces involved in training Filipino troops, Duterte said, have become targets for the Islamic State-linked Abu Sayyaf.
“These special forces, they have to go,” he said during an oath-taking ceremony for new officials. “I do not want a rift with America. But they have to go.”
He then added: “Americans, they will really kill them, they will try to kidnap them to get ransom.”
Since 2002, when the U.S. special forces trainers first arrived in Philippines, some have been killed by Abu Sayyaf.
Earnest, however, said the military training programs are “an indication of the alliance between the United States and the Philippines.”
“We’ve got a wide-range of shared concerns and shared interests, and the U.S. and the Philippines have been able to work effectively together in a variety of areas to advance our mutual interests,” he said, adding that Obama “is certainly committed to continuing to do that over the four months that are remaining in his second term.”
He also said Duterte’s tendency to make inflammatory remarks is “an indication of how important elections are” and told reporters that the Filipino people “have enormous affection for the United States” especially after the U.S. led an international response and mobilized tens of millions of dollars to help the country recover from a cyclone in 2013.
Duterte won the presidential election in early May.
