The top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee reportedly halted the sale of rifles to the Philippines following President Rodrigo Duterte’s call for a separation from the United States.
The U.S. had planned to sell 26,000 M4 carbines to the Philippines for their national police force until Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., said he would oppose the sale, Reuters first reported. Cardin stopped the proposed sale because of the Philippines’ human rights violations, according to the report.
If the U.S. does not supply the weapons, officials from the Philippines said they would just go elsewhere. Ronald dela Rosa, the national police chief, told Reuters that the American rifles are “reliable,” but that they could find another supplier in China. Duterte, on the other hand, suggested his country might buy from another rival of the U.S.
“[I] remember what the Russian diplomat said: Come to Russia, we all have here anything you need,” he told CNN Philippines.
State Department spokesman John Kirby said he wasn’t allowed to comment on the report.
“[T]he department is restricted under federal regulations from commenting on the status of commercial export license approvals of proposed commercial defense sales. So we’re going to stay also committed to working closely with members of Congress to deliver security assistance to our allies and partners worldwide, including the Philippines,” he said.
The alliance with the Philippines first grew shaky in early September, when Duterte called President Obama a “son of a bitch,” prompting a meeting between the two leaders to be canceled. He also recently asked American troops to leave the country, even though he previously asked for them to be there.
Kirby told reporters late last month that he was “baffled” by Duterte’s call for a separation from the United States.
“We still hold that it is inexplicably at odds with the very close relationship that we have with the Filipino people as well as the government there on many different levels,” Kirby said. “We are going to be seeking an explanation of exactly what the president meant when he talked about ‘separation’ from the U.S. It’s not clear to us exactly what that means in all of its ramifications.”
Kirby later said that the relationship between the two countries “remains stable and solid” despite these comments from Duterte.
Foreign military sales overall in the first month of fiscal 2017 are off to a slow start, according to a report released Tuesday from Cowen Washington Research Group. October saw only four potential deals valued at $415 million, compared to four deals in October 2016 valued at just over $12 billion, Roman Schweizer wrote.
It’s unclear if the deal with the Philippines was included in that tally.
Still, Schweizer said he expects foreign military sales to pick up in the remainder of the first quarter, including three big fighter deals — two for Boeing and one for Lockheed Martin.
“For now, we consider October as a one-off,” he said.
The Pentagon is looking at ways of speeding up the foreign military sales process to benefit the American defense industry. When deals move too sluggishly, countries often turn to other suppliers, representing a loss for American businesses.
