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Come January 20, 2025, Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 47th president of the United States. The impact of this reelection is expected to be manifold and far-reaching.
On November 5, 2024, Donald Trump secured his second term of presidency.
Many have advanced analysis of how this came to be: a perceived vote for the economy, a disregard for women’s rights, an incumbency disadvantage, an ever-growing anti-immigration sentiment, among many, many others.
What is certain is that come January 20, 2025, Trump will be sworn in as the 47th president of the United States. The impact of this reelection is expected to be manifold and far-reaching. This is especially the case for the Philippines, whose historical ties with the United States run deep.
Second term, double marginalization
A Trump presidency signals a massive shift in immigration policies. Immigration was a central campaign issue for Trump’s campaign, promising stringent border measures and mass deportation of undocumented immigrants. Among the plans outlined by the president-elect’s allies are expansion of detention facilities and revoking protection for migrants from previous humanitarian programs.
Any change in US immigration policies is certain to impact the Philippines as a major exporter of migrant labor. In 2021, nearly 2 million Filipino immigrants reportedly reside in the US. A considerable portion are migrant nurses, who comprise 1 out of 20 registered nurses in the host country.
The Philippines remains the chief supplier of nursing labor to the US, with over 150,000 Filipino nurses migrating to the country since 1960. The nursing pipeline between the two countries was forged by its colonial history and facilitated by the glaring absence of a bilateral labor agreement. These migration flows are now under threat.
Filipino nurses working in US hospitals additionally face disproportionate treatment compared to their white counterparts. They are given lower wages, less desirable work shifts, and are made to grapple with heightened occupational exposure to illness.
As such, Filipino nurses — who are dominantly women and part of a racial minority — risk being doubly marginalized.
Trump’s first term is marked by incessant attacks on women’s rights, particularly disrupting their access to health care. Furthermore, his xenophobic remarks during the COVID-19 pandemic notably sparked anti-Asian rhetoric and a series of Asian hate crimes across the US. His decisive win amid (or perhaps because of) his blatant misogyny and racism risks a repeat of these incidents, with the Filipino migrant minority bearing a target on their back.
A great leap backward
Filipinos who stay in the country are also not exempt from the projected fallout of the Trump presidency.
The US remains the largest donor to global health. For the year 2024, US funding for global health totaled $12.4 billion. This funding is used to support programs responding to diseases such as HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria, as well as activities dedicated to nutrition, maternal and child health, and family planning and reproductive health, among others.
The continuity of these efforts is now threatened by the 900-page roadmap authored by right-wing figures and former Trump staffers, dubbed as Project 2025. While Trump distanced himself from the manifesto during the campaign, he has begun tapping several architects of the program to join his administration.
A portion of the project is dedicated to disrupting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, rendering gender inequity and systemic racism invisible. The project also aims to dismantle climate initiatives, declaring their goal to roll back carbon reduction initiatives and put fossil fuels back at the helm of the country’s energy policy.
The continued dependence on fossil fuels — the largest contributor to climate change — is a global threat, with the Philippines among the top countries that will bear the brunt.
Quo vadis?
The rotten cherry on top is Trump’s pick for his health secretary.
If confirmed, notorious vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will run the US Department of Health and Human Services, which include the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration.
Kennedy was known for spreading debunked misinformation about vaccinations, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. His potential leadership raises worries over increase in vaccine hesitancy, which the World Health Organization has identified to be among the top 10 threats to global health.
The seemingly backwards direction taken on by the US on global health is in itself a security threat.
The risks posed by the Trump presidency cuts across geographical regions and international boundaries. It is critical for the Philippines to rethink, reframe, and ultimately reinvent its approach to health security to — at the very least — safeguard the people most vulnerable to these projected impacts. – Rappler.com
The authors are with the Health Governance and Security Program of the Ateneo Policy Center, School of Government, at Ateneo de Manila University. Kenneth Y. Hartigan-Go is the Senior Research Fellow and Melissa Louise M. Prieto is the Research Assistant III and Program Coordinator.
The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Ateneo de Manila University.
