​President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines said on Wednesday that he wanted to get rid of all foreign military in his country in two years and was willing to override existing agreements to do it. By REUTERS on Publish Date October 26, 2016. Photo by Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters. Watch in Times Video »

TOKYO — President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, on a trip to Japan, said Wednesday that he wanted all foreign troops out of his country within “maybe two years” and that he was willing to revoke base-hosting agreements with the United States.

The remarks, made to a group of Japanese and Filipino businessmen in Tokyo, are the clearest signal yet that Mr. Duterte wants to renegotiate the 2014 agreement his predecessor reached with the United States to let the Pentagon use five Philippine military bases, a central component of the Obama administration’s plan to bolster American influence in Asia.

“I want them out,” Mr. Duterte said of the American troops in his country, adding that he was willing to “revise or abrogate agreements.” He also repeated a recent assertion that he would withdraw from any joint military exercises with the United States, a treaty ally. “This will be the last maneuver, war games, between the United States and the Philippine military,” he said, according to a transcript of his remarks.

Mr. Duterte’s trip to Japan is his first state visit since he said in China last week that he wanted a “separation” from the United States, a remark he later softened. He told his Tokyo audience on Wednesday that he had discussed only economic matters with Chinese officials, not security or alliances.

Still, his visit puts Japan, another important ally of the United States in Asia and the Philippines’ largest trading partner, in the delicate position of trying to retain a balance in an increasingly tense region where Japan fears any further tilt toward China.

Mr. Duterte was more subdued in a joint statement with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe later on Wednesday. Calling Japan a “special friend who is closer than a brother,” he said the Philippines would continue to work closely with Tokyo and uphold democracy and the rule of law in a peaceful settlement of disputes in the South China Sea.

Mr. Abe said that those disputes were a “matter of interest for the entire global community” and that he welcomed Mr. Duterte’s efforts “to improve and further advance the relationship between the Philippines and China.”

Shortly after landing in Japan on Tuesday night, Mr. Duterte had made provocative remarks about Washington.

“They are disrespecting us,” he told more than 500 Filipinos gathered at the Palace Hotel in Tokyo, referring to the United States, which he called a bully. He also referred to unspecified critics of his bloody campaign against drugs in the Philippines, saying they had threatened him with jail. “Son of a bitch, jail?” he said. “I’ll cut your head off.”

Both American and Japanese leaders have been scrambling to understand exactly what Mr. Duterte, a hugely popular leader at home, has meant by his remarks about the American relationship, which at times have seemed contradictory. As recently as Tuesday, Mr. Duterte had said that he did not want to revoke the military alliance with the United States, which has about 100 troops stationed on the southern island of Mindanao.

“It’s clear that many of the things that have been said are inconsistent with friendship and alliance,” the departing United States ambassador to the Philippines, Philip S. Goldberg, said Monday.

The Philippine foreign minister, Perfecto Yasay Jr., offered reassurances about the alliance in remarks to reporters after Mr. Duterte’s speech Wednesday. “There is no reason at this time to terminate our agreements because our national interests still continue to converge,” he said.

And in a summit meeting between Mr. Abe and Mr. Duterte on Wednesday afternoon, the two leaders discussed the importance of both the alliance between Japan and the United States as well as the alliance between the Philippines and the United States.

Analysts said Japan, as an ally that may have its own frustrations with its relationship with the United States — and which, like the Philippines, has an American troop presence with some degree of public sentiment against it — was well placed to play the sympathetic ear with Mr. Duterte.

“Japan is in a position right now — and Prime Minister Abe specifically — to really remind him of the importance of the United States, but also to provide a venue to let him blow off some steam,” said Jeffrey Hornung, a fellow in the security and foreign affairs program at Sasakawa Foundation USA, a research institute based in Washington.

The Japanese government, which is the largest importer of goods and services from the Philippines and a major provider of aid and investment, has also repeatedly signaled its strong support for the July ruling by an international tribunal in The Hague over disputes between the Philippines and China in the South China Sea.

But while that ruling was overwhelmingly in the Philippines’ favor, Mr. Duterte said last week that the tribunal’s decision could “take a back seat” to reopened negotiations with China.

For Japan, which recently offered two additional coast guard ships to help the Philippines protect its interests in the South China Sea, Mr. Duterte’s stance could be troubling if it results in China gaining more maritime power in the region.

Japan also does not want any precedent set in its own disputes with China over a chain of islands in the East China Sea where both China and Japan claim territorial rights, known as the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China.

“Japan has invested for some time in the political and military sphere in Southeast Asia basically as part of its China containment policy,” said Robert Dujarric, director of the Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies at the Tokyo campus of Temple University. “I think they are hoping, like everyone else, that Southeast Asia will be on their side against” China, he added. “So prima facie this is bad, because he switched sides,” he said, speaking of Mr. Duterte.

When Mr. Abe met with Mr. Duterte last month in the Laotian capital of Vientiane at a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the two leaders agreed to uphold the Hague ruling on the South China Sea.

While some observers have been tempted to liken Mr. Duterte to Donald J. Trump, the United States presidential candidate, for his provocative, populist rhetoric, others said that it may have been in part Mr. Trump’s own remarks about American alliances during his campaign that have led Asian leaders like Mr. Duterte to feel insecure about their ties with the United States.

“There is some kind of uneasiness in Asian countries with regard to the durability of the U.S. strategic commitment to the region,” said Yoichi Funabashi, chairman of the Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation, a research institute in Tokyo, referring to Mr. Trump’s repeated assertions that the United States could no longer serve as the world’s protector. But Mr. Funabashi said that if Manila were to revoke its alliance with Washington, “that would have devastating impacts on regional stability.”

For the United States, foreign policy experts said that Mr. Duterte’s passionate remarks should encourage some internal assessment of how America treats its allies.

“It should cause us to be somewhat self-critical and make sure that we don’t just say ‘this guy is a Philippine Donald Trump,’ but actually do a little self-examination to make sure that there aren’t ways that we handle our alliances that couldn’t be improved,” said Susan Shirk, chairwoman of the 21st Century China Center at the University of California, San Diego.

Some Filipinos who traveled with the president’s delegation said that Mr. Duterte was still developing his international communication style.

“He has not learned any diplomacy yet,” said Armi Martinez, a school principal from Manila who accompanied her husband, the owner of an import-export business who was attending the business meeting at which Mr. Duterte spoke in Tokyo. “He’s a real politician,” she said of Mr. Duterte.

Despite his strong and sometimes vitriolic rhetoric, foreign policy experts said there was still room for Mr. Duterte to repair his relations with the United States.

The president “is in the process of learning,” said Yusuke Takagi, an assistant professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo. “I don’t think it’s the right time to decide to characterize the administration as anti-U.S. or pro-China. I think it’s too simple.”

Source: www.nytimes.com