October 4, 2016 | No Comments
Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte’s declaration that his U.S. counterpart can “go to hell” is “at odds with the warm relationship” between the two nations, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Tuesday.
In addition to telling President Barack Obama to “go to hell,” Duterte said he could decide to “break up with America” over the White House’s criticism of his government’s deadly crackdown on the Filipino drug trade. Instead of the U.S., a longtime ally of the Philippines, Duterte said “I would rather go to Russia and to China.”
“Those comments are at odds with the warm relationship that exists between the Filipino and American people. There’s also an important record of cooperation between our two governments, cooperation that has continued under the Duterte government, in fact,” Earnest said at his daily press briefing. “The United States-Philippines alliance is built on a 70-year history of strong people-to-people ties, including a vibrant Filipino-American diaspora and a long list of shared security concerns.”
But Earnest hastened to add that the United States would not hesitate to raise concerns about the “extrajudicial killings” Duterte’s government has been accused of carrying out. The press secretary said such actions “certainly don’t do anything to strengthen” ties between the U.S. and the Philippines.
“Fortunately, there is a long history of a steadfast alliance between the United States and the Philippines that stretches back some 70 years. It’s rooted in our common values, it’s rooted in the warm feelings that the citizens of our two countries have for one another,” Earnest said, adding that the crackdown is “entirely inconsistent with the kinds of values that are the bedrock of our alliance. That’s why the president nor anybody else in the U.S. Government is going to hesitate to raise these strong concerns.”
Earnest said the U.S. was prepared to offer whatever assistance it could to help the Philippines combat its drug trafficking problem while insisting that “a commitment to human rights be maintained.” He said that the president had not received any official request from Duterte or any other Filipino official requesting a change in the nations’ relationship.
While Duterte’s “go to hell” remark is perhaps his strongest outburst yet against Obama, it was not his first. The president canceled a planned meeting with the Filipino leader that had been scheduled to occur on the sidelines of an ASEAN meeting last month after Duterte said, “son of a bitch, I will swear at you in that forum,” referring to Obama.