United States President Donald Trump and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte have often been compared to each other in the media for being foul-mouthed populists. So it’s not a surprise that the two hit it off from their first in-person meeting in Vietnam at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Vietnam on Friday, to the ongoing Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit here in Manila.
“The relation appears to be very warm and very friendly. They’ve been candid in their dealings,” Duterte’s new spokesperson Harry Roque told reporters during an ASEAN Summit press conference yesterday.
And what do the two have in common that solidified their friendship? According to Roque, their dislike of former US President Barack Obama.
“It’s apparent that both of them have a person who they consider as not their best friend. They have similar feelings toward former US President Barack Obama,” Roque told reporters.
Before last year’s APEC Summit, Duterte called Obama a “son of a whore” because of his criticism of the war on drugs. Human rights advocates say that there have been 13,000 extrajudicial killings in the country due to the drug war. The government pegs the number of drug war casualties below 6,225, although they deny the deaths are extrajudicial killings.
While Obama’s term ended in January earlier this year, it seems Duterte had not gotten over the ex-US president’s criticism.
“These white people, those from EU, these ignorant Americans, pretending to be… even Obama. You are so dark, you are arrogant. That’s who he is,” Duterte told Filipino community members in Vietnam on Friday before the APEC Summit.
Despite his dislike of Obama, Duterte said last September that he already wanted “friendlier” relations with the US.
Trump seems interested in doing the same.
“We’ve [Duterte and I] had a great relationship,” Trump was quoted in the New York Times yesterday.
Praising Duterte’s leadership on hosting the ASEAN Summit, Trump said, “This has been very successful.”
He probably did not notice the thousands of demonstrators who marched on Taft ave. and Padre Faura st., who burnt a 13-foot effigy protesting his presence at the summit.
When asked by reporters yesterday if he would bring up human rights during his meeting with Duterte, Trump did not answer and reporters were escorted out of the room.
As they were being escorted out, Duterte clarified that it wasn’t a press conference and jokingly told reporters “you are spies.”
Trump spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee, however, told reporters that human rights were brought up “briefly”
READ: Trump brought up human rights ‘briefly’ with Duterte: spokeswoman
Trump is scheduled to return to the US today ahead of the East Asia Summit.
