By Guy Birchall
The United States and the Philippines are set to build a 4,000-acre industrial hub after Manila became the latest government to sign up to a Washington-led initiative to secure semiconductor supply chains needed for artificial intelligence, the U.S. State Department announced on April 17.
The move makes the Philippines the 13th country to join “Pax Silica,” an international program that aims to secure the full technology supply chain, including critical minerals, advanced manufacturing, computing, and data infrastructure.
The initiative is a key aspect of President Donald Trump’s economic strategy aimed at reducing the United States’ dependence on rival nations and strengthening cooperation among allied partners, with the State Department describing it as “a positive-sum partnership of nations who want to remain competitive and prosperous.”
Other signatories to Pax Silica include Australia, Finland, India, Israel, Japan, Qatar, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, Sweden, the United Arab Emirates, and the UK.
The new hub will be erected in New Clark City, the Philippines’ planned metropolis north of Manila, which is owned and developed by the government through the Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA).
New Clark City sits within the Luzon Economic Corridor, a strategic hub that includes Manila and neighboring regions to the capital.
“It is intended to serve as a staging point for a purpose-built platform for allied manufacturing,” the State Department said in a statement announcing the agreement
“The two Allies are committed to strengthening shared supply chains in critical minerals, semiconductors, electronics, and other goods,” it added.
In addition, the Philippines, Japan, and the United States have committed to ramping up infrastructure investments in the corridor under a trilateral framework agreement.
BCDA Chairman Hilario Paredes said authorities would be assessing whether sufficient contiguous land was available to host the project.
“We will check if we have space that is contiguous,” Paredes said. “We will have to sit down and finalise the details.” He added that the proposed hub would be a commercial facility.
New Clark City sits on state‑owned land that was part of a former U.S. military reservation that was transferred to the Philippine government after American forces pulled out of bases in the country in 1991.
Relations between Manila and Washington have grown significantly more cordial since Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. took office in 2022.
Marcos, the son of Manila’s former leader Ferdinand Marcos Sr., has sought closer ties with the United States, the former colonial power in the Philippines, a marked shift from his predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, who was more sympathetic to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Beijing.
Duterte was arrested under an International Criminal Court warrant in March 2025, after returning to Manila following a trip to Hong Kong.
He is accused of crimes against humanity over a harsh and deadly anti-drug campaign he pursued during his presidency.
Marcos visited the White House in July 2025, where Trump told him the two nations were recalibrating their ties and minimizing influence from the CCP.
“The country was maybe tilting towards China, but we un-tilted it very, very quickly,” Trump said during the nearly 40-minute Oval Office meeting.
“You had a country that was tilting toward China for a period of time, and I just don’t think that would have been good for you.”
Trump said Marcos’s November election victory changed the trajectory of the relationship.
In a further indication of deepening ties between the two nations, the United States and the Philippines announced on April 16 that they would be participating in one of their largest annual combat exercises held in the country.
During the April 20–May 8 maneuvers, called the Balikatan, Japanese forces will fire a missile in a ship-sinking exercise in northwestern Philippine waters facing the disputed South China Sea. Japan’s defense chief has been invited to witness the live-fire drill, Philippine military officials said.
Reuters contributed to this report.
