SecDEF Hegseth announces a deployment of marine anti-shipping missiles in Balikatan, cooperation of the industrial defense base with Manila in the Philippines Visit

The defense secretary Pete Hegseth meets the Philippin President Bongong Marcos at the Palais de Malacañang in Manila, Philippines, March 28, 2025. Dod Photo

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has promised deployments of anti-ship missiles, military industrial basic cooperation and increased defense in the Philippines under the stages to “restore” the deterrent in Indo-Pacific alongside the Philippine Secretary for National Defense Gilbert Teodoro today in Manila.

“We have agreed on the next steps to restore – and it is the key – replenishment in the Indo -Pacific region,” said HegSeth.

Hegseth led to Manila on Thursday during his first trip to a foreign partner in the region. This visit preceded other allies of the American Treaty in Asia, such as Japan, South Korea and Australia, a fact that Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and other officials noted as a demonstration of Washington’s commitment to Manila.

“Your visit to the region, and especially the fact that you came to the Philippines as the first stop, is a very strong indication and sends a very strong message to the commitment of our two countries to continue working together to maintain peace in the Indo-Pacific region inside the Southern China Sea,” Marcos told Hegseth at a meeting in Malacañang Palace.

“We are satisfied with the importance given to the stability and the improvement of this relationship as Lynchpin to secure peace and stability in Indo-Pacific,” said Teodoro.

The American and Filipino Secretaries of Defense announced the deployment of the expeditionary prohibition system of the Marine-Marine, an unmanned ground vehicle equipped with a naval strike missile which can reach up to 100 sea kilometers, during the April Balikatan exercise.

The 3rd MLR, which awaited the approval of the Philippin government to send NMESIS to the Philippines, trained with the anti-ship missile system during the training activity prior to the regiment last month. This new capacity joined the unit’s medium missile battery in December.

The appearance of Nmesis in Balikatan is based on the deployment of Typhon missiles from last year to the Northern Philippines, which aroused Chinese condemnation. Beijing reaction to the ground missile systems was noted by Manila, which allowed Washington to keep the system on Philippin soil since last April.

Balikatan 2025 is expected to be one of the most intensive iterations in the 40 -year -old exercise series to date and will organize a “complete battle simulation” through the Philippin archipelago. 15-16,000 participants from the Philippines, Australia, Japan and the United States will train in the Philippines and in the Southern China Sea.

Hegseth said that US forces will also deploy “very capable unparalleled surface vehicles” for exercises. An American working group based in Palawan, a Philippine province confronted with the Southern China Sea, helped the staff of the Philippine navy in unmanned training on surface ships on the Mantas T-12 of maritime tactical systems of American manufacturing and the devil Ray T-38.

A remote land unit, driven remotely for expeditionary (Rogue), draws a vehicle with a naval typing missile attached during a November 2020 test, California.

The bilateral training of special forces in Banni, a group of the Philippine Island between Luzon and Taiwan, was also announced as the theater of increased cooperation in defense in the midst of tensions in the South China Sea and in the Strait of Taiwan. The American and Philippine troops will return to the practice of the defense of the islands strategically located in the exercise of Balikatan of this year.

The two countries have also published a joint vision statement on the cooperation of the industrial defense base. The priority areas included co -production in unmanned systems, ammunition, minerals, aviation and maintenance and repair of ships.

“The projects in this context intend to seek to support the Philippines because it develops more advanced defense capacities, increases and diversifies its economy, and contributes to the basic industrial capacity of bilateral and regional defense,” read joint vision.

Manila seeks to invest in its industrial defense database among the tensions of the Southern China Sea and military modernization programs within the framework of the posture of defense of autonomy. Japan and South Korea have also expressed their interest in the cooperation of the defense industry, especially in shipbuilding and maintenance.

War ships in the United States, the Philippines and Japanese have made a joint patrol near Scarborough Shoal on the same day as HegSeth’s visit to Manila. The trialteral exercise was shaded by a ship of the Popular Liberation Army.

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