MANILA: The United States has no immediate plans to withdraw a mid-range missile system deployed in the Philippines, despite Chinese demands, and is testing the feasibility of its use in a regional conflict, sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
The Typhon system, which can be equipped with cruise missiles capable of striking Chinese targets, was brought in for joint exercises earlier this year, both countries said at the time, but has remained there.
The Southeast Asian archipelago, Taiwan’s neighbor to the South, is an important part of US strategy in Asia and would be an indispensable staging point for the military to aid Taipei in the event of a Chinese attack.
China and Russia condemned the move – the first deployment of the system to the Indo-Pacific – and accused Washington of fueling an arms race.

The deployment, some details of which have not been previously reported, comes as China and US defense treaty ally the Philippines clash over parts of the hotly contested South China Sea. Recent months have brought a series of sea and air confrontations in the strategic waterway.
Philippine officials said Filipino and US forces continued to train with the missile system, which is in northern Luzon, which faces the South China Sea and is close to the Taiwan Strait, and they were not aware of immediate plans to return it, even though the joint exercises end this month.
A Philippine army spokesman, Col. Louie Dema-ala, told Reuters on Wednesday that training was ongoing and it was up to the United States Army Pacific (USARPAC) to decide how long the missile system would stay.
A public affairs officer for USARPAC said that the Philippine army had said the Typhon could stay beyond September and soldiers trained with it as recently as last week, engaging “in discussions over employing the system, with a focus on integrating host nation support.”
A senior Philippine government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, and another person familiar with the matter said the USand the Philippines were testing the feasibility of using the system there in the event of a conflict, trialing how well it worked in that environment.
The government official said the Typhon — a modular system, which is intended to be mobile and moved as needed — was in the Philippines for a “test on the feasibility of deploying it in country, so that when the need arises, it could easily be deployed here.”
The office of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr did not respond to a request for comment.

‘Sleepless nights’
The US army flew the Typhon, which can launch missiles including SM-6 missiles and Tomahawks with a range exceeding 1,600 km (994 miles), to the Philippines in April in what it called a “historic first” and a “significant step in our partnership with the Philippines.”
A note by the US Congressional Research Service, a policy institute of the USCongress, published at the time said it was “not known if this temporary deployment could eventually become permanent.”
In July, army spokesman Dema-ala confirmed the Typhon missile launcher remained in the Philippines’ northern islands and said there was no specific date as to when it would be “shipped out,” correcting an earlier statement that it was due to leave in September.
A satellite image taken on Wednesday by Planet Labs, a commercial satellite firm, and reviewed by Reuters showed the Typhon at the Laoag International Airport, in Ilocos Norte province.

Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, who analyzed the images, said the system remained.
The senior government official who spoke to Reuters said there were no immediate plans to withdraw it.
“If ever it will be pulled out, it is because the objective has been achieved and it may be brought (back) in after all the repairs or the construction would have been done,” the official said, adding that there was strategic value for the Philippines in keeping the system to deter China.
“We want to give them sleepless nights.”

Anti-ship weapons
The US has been amassing a variety of anti-ship weapons in Asia, as Washington attempts to catch up quickly in an Indo-Pacific missile race in which China has a big lead, Reuters has reported.
Although the US military has declined to say how many will be deployed in the Indo-Pacific region, more than 800 SM-6 missiles are due to be bought in the next five years, according to government documents outlining military purchases. Several thousand Tomahawks are already in US inventories, the documents showed.
China has denounced the deployment of the Typhon several times, including in May when Wu Qian, spokesperson for China’s defense ministry, said Manila and Washington had brought “huge risks of war into the region”.
Russian President Vladimir Putin in June cited the deployment when announcing his country would resume production of intermediate- and shorter-range nuclear-capable missiles.
Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo in July assured his Chinese counterpart the presence of the missile system in his country
posed no threat to China and would not destabilize the region.
China has fully militarized at least three of several islands it built in the South China Sea, which it mostly claims in full despite a 2016 arbitral ruling that backed the Philippines, arming them with anti-ship and anti-aircraft missiles, the UShas said.
China says its military facilities in the Spratly islands are purely defensive, and that it can do what it likes on its own territory.

WASHINGTON: The International Brotherhood of Teamsters declined Wednesday to endorse Kamala Harris or Donald Trump for president, saying neither candidate had sufficient support from the 1.3 million-member union.
“Unfortunately, neither major candidate was able to make serious commitments to our union to ensure the interests of working people are always put before Big Business,” Teamsters President Sean M. O’Brien said in a statement. “We sought commitments from both Trump and Harris not to interfere in critical union campaigns or core Teamsters industries — and to honor our members’ right to strike — but were unable to secure those pledges.”
The Teamsters’ rebuff reflected a labor union torn over issues of political identity and policy, one that mirrors a broader national divide. Vice President Harris has unmistakably backed organized labor, while former President Trump has appealed to many white blue-collar workers even as he has openly scorned unions at times. By not endorsing anyone, the Teamsters are essentially ceding some influence in November’s election as both candidates claimed to have support from its members.
Harris campaign spokesperson Lauren Hitt noted in an emailed statement that more than three dozen retired Teamsters spoke last month in Chicago at the Democratic National Convention, having endorsed Harris. Their pensions were saved through the 2021 passage of the Butch Lewis Act that President Joe Biden and Harris championed.
“While Donald Trump says striking workers should be fired, Vice President Harris has literally walked the picket line and stood strong with organized labor for her entire career,” Hitt said. “The Vice President’s strong union record is why Teamsters locals across the country have already endorsed her — alongside the overwhelming majority of organized labor.”
The Teamsters said Wednesday that internal polling of members showed Trump with an advantage over Harris, a fact that the Republican’s campaign immediately seized upon by sending out an email that said the “rank-and-file of the Teamsters Union supports Donald Trump for President.”
Trump called the Teamsters’ decision not to endorse “a great honor.”
“It’s a great honor,” he said. “They’re not going to endorse the Democrats. That’s a big thing.”
Harris met Monday with a panel of Teamsters, having long courted organized labor and made support for the middle class her central policy goal. Trump also met with a panel of Teamsters in January and even invited O’Brien to speak at the Republican National Convention, where the union leader railed against corporate greed.
In an interview Wednesday on Fox News, O’Brien said lack of an endorsement tells candidates that they have to back the Teamsters in the future. “This should be an eye opener for 2028,” he said. “If people want the support of the most powerful union in North America, whether you’re a Democrat or Republican, start doing some things to support our members,” he said.
The Teamsters’ choice to not endorse came just weeks ahead of the Nov. 5 election, far later than endorsements by other large unions such as the AFL-CIO, the American Federation of Teachers and the United Auto Workers that have chosen to devote resources to getting out the vote for Harris.
With O’Brien facing a backlash from some Teamsters’ members after speaking at the Republican National Convention, it’s no surprise that the union decided not to make an endorsement, said Art Wheaton, director of labor studies at Cornell University.
Trump’s praise of Tesla CEO Elon Musk for firing workers who supposedly went on strike really made a Trump endorsement very unlikely, Wheaton said. “The members were not in total agreement,” he said.
Marick Masters, a business professor emeritus at Wayne State University in Detroit who follows labor issues, said the Teamsters lack of an endorsement suggests a realignment within the union’s membership.
For many workers, issues such as gun control, abortion and border security override Trump’s expressions of hostility to unions, Masters said.
The Teamsters detailed their objections to the candidates in a statement, starting with their objection to a contract implemented by Congress in 2022 on members working in the railroad sector.
The union wanted both candidates to commit to not deploying the Railway Labor Act to resolve contract disputes and avoid a shutdown of national infrastructure, but Harris and Trump both wanted to keep that option open even though the Teamsters said it would reduce its bargaining power.
Harris has pledged to sign the PRO Act, which would strengthen union protections and is something the Teamsters support. Trump, in his roundtable with the Teamsters, did not promise to veto a proposal to make it harder nationwide to unionize.
Other unions have shown trepidation about endorsing either presidential candidate. The United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America on Friday ultimately endorsed Harris with a caveat that “the manner in which party leaders engineered Biden’s replacement at the top of the ticket with Vice President Kamala Harris was thoroughly undemocratic,” union leadership said in a statement.
But the Teamsters lack of endorsement also suggests an indifference to the Biden-Harris administration, which signed into law a measure that saved the pensions of millions of union retirees, including many in the Teamsters.
As part of its 2021 pandemic aid, the administration included the Butch Lewis Act to save the underfunded pensions of more than 1 million union workers and retirees’ underfunded pensions. The act was named after a retired Ohio trucker and Teamsters union leader who spent the last years of his life fighting to prevent massive cuts to the Teamsters’ Central States Pension Fund.