The U.S. and the Philippines struck a deal on Wednesday to enable U.S.’s access to four more military bases in the Philippines on top of the five locations they agreed on in 2016. The two countries became military allies in 1951 by signing the Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT), making the Philippines the U.S.’s oldest ally in Asia. The military base sharing programs were under the 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), which, together with the 1998 Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), is an enhancement of the MDT. The U.S. has two military allies in Southeast Asia — the Philippines and Thailand. Unlike the Philippines, Thailand, which only signed a multilateral defense treaty with the U.S. in 1954, does not have a bilateral defense agreement with Washington. As the U.S. State Department summarized,
EDCA “authorizes U.S. forces access to agreed locations in the
Philippines on a rotational basis, for security cooperation exercises,
joint and combined military training activities, and humanitarian
assistance and disaster relief activities.” U.S.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Philippine Secretary of National
Defense Carlito Galvez agreed on the expansion of EDCA during their meeting in Manila. At a joint news conference after the meeting, Austin said
these efforts “are especially important as the People's Republic of
China continues to advance its illegitimate claims in the West
Philippine Sea," mentioning the South China Sea in a way Manila
prefers.
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