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The iron-clad alliance of the Philippines and the United States remains strong whoever wins the US presidential elections, US Ambassador to the Philippines MaryKay Carlson said Wednesday.
Carlson made the statement as presidential bets Kamala Harris (Democrat) and Donald Trump (Republican) race for 270 electoral votes on election day on Nov. 5.
“As friends, partners and allies, we have a lot to celebrate, and there’s very strong bipartisan support in the United States for this relationship,” she said in an interview at a US Embassy-organized election watch reception in Makati City. “I’m highly confident that whoever wins the presidential election, US-Philippine relations are on very strong footing.”
“In my 39 years in the State Department, I have witnessed transitions from Republican to Democrat to Republican and back and forth. And I am extremely confident that US-Philippine relations will remain steadfast —we will remain steadfast friends and iron-clad allies as well as partners in prosperity no matter who wins the election in the United States today,” she added.
On defense issues, Carlson said work at the US Congress alone has shown that both Republicans and Democrats “enthusiastically support” the US-Philippines alliance and foreign military financing for the country.
“And that goes across the board, not just when it comes to our military-to-military relationship, but also we are very strong partners in prosperity,” she said, citing the various bilateral and multilateral economic partnership established in the past years.
Carlson also cited strong bipartisan support to Washington DC’s “latticework of relations” in the Indo-Pacific, such as the trilateral among the US, Japan, and the Philippines as well as with Australia, South Korea, and many others.
“Those relationships have stood the test of time for decades,” she said.
There are 538 electors in the electoral college, the system used by the US to determine the winning candidate, with voting rules set and regulated by each state.
Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Nevada are seen as the battleground states that would determine election results.
Of the seven, Pennsylvania has the highest number of allocated electoral votes at 19.
A presidential bet must get at least 270 electoral votes.
The last polls closes in Hawaii and Alaska at 12 a.m. and 1 a.m. Eastern Time.
Based on the CNN election map, Trump is leading with 154 while Harris is catching up with 81. (PNA)