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Michael Punongbayan - The Philippine Star
April 11, 2026 | 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — The United States and the Philippines signed yesterday an agreement aimed at boosting bilateral health cooperation.
The US State Department announced that the Joint Declaration of Intent seeks to “establish a framework for health cooperation to transition the Philippines to greater autonomy and self-reliance in its health systems while strengthening the Philippines’ capacity to detect and respond to global health threats, including HIV, tuberculosis and other infectious diseases.”
Signed through the Trump administration’s America First Global Health Strategy, the State Department said the joint declaration “commits to co-funding mutually agreed upon global health objectives in the near future, furthering US-Philippine bilateral collaboration in the health sector.”
“This Joint Declaration is complemented by the US health assistance announced in September 2025 to combat tuberculosis, advance maternal health and strengthen disease surveillance and outbreak response.”
Under the Joint Declaration, the US and the Philippines will negotiate a five-year Strategic Objective Agreement that advances all three pillars of the Trump administration’s America First Global Health Strategy.
The State Department said this new arrangement “will save American and Filipino lives, increase the resiliency of the Philippine health system through coordinated co-funding and promote innovations in program delivery to slow the spread of infectious diseases like TB and HIV. ”
Food progress
The US Department of Agriculture meanwhile has identified the Philippines as among seven priority countries that will benefit from its Food for Progress program in 2026.
This means that the Philippines will have priority over other nations in receiving multimillion-dollar cooperative agreements this year.
The USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service also announced its priority countries for its McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition program.
“For FY 2026, Food for Progress anticipates awarding up to $226 million in new cooperative agreements for up to five-year projects ranging from $28 to $35 million each,”it read.
Priority countries include Bangladesh, Bolivia, Ecuador, Morocco, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Thailand.
