THE HAMILTONIAN TURN:
WHY THE PHILIPPINES MUST CHOOSE ITS OWN ECONOMIC DESTINY
When President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. posed for photographs beside Donald J. Trump during his latest trip to the United States, it was more than ceremonial pageantry. Behind the smiles and the red carpets was a trade deal—presented as a victory—whose details reveal an uncomfortable truth: the Philippines is being asked to play the part of junior partner, again.
Under the new U.S.-PH agreement, the tariff on Philippine goods exported to the United States was reduced by a mere 1%—from 20% to 19%—while American access to Filipino markets and capital remains as liberalized as ever. Framed in the language of “mutual growth” and “shared values,” the deal echoes the same pattern seen throughout postcolonial Philippine trade history: open up, give way, and accept trickle-down promises that rarely materialize.
But this time, something felt different. Trump wasn’t even in office, and yet his very presence seemed to dominate the meeting. His shadow loomed over the announcement, his slogan—Make America Great Again—resonating louder than any diplomatic platitude. And that is what unsettled many back home.
There is nothing inherently wrong with populism. In many ways, it is a response to the failures of technocrats and the arrogance of global elites. But when Filipinos hear Trump’s brand of economic nationalism, a question begins to stir in the national conscience: Do we really need MAGA, or do we need a New Deal?
This question strikes at the heart of the nation’s economic future.
Filipino leaders—past and present—have long subscribed to the gospel of free trade, structural adjustment, and deregulation. They have been told, and have repeated, that development means opening borders, privatizing industries, and waiting patiently for investment to trickle in. But the results are plain: weakened industries, hollowed-out agriculture, dependence on foreign labor markets, and a youth forced to migrate because there is little future at home.
Trump’s MAGA model, as flawed as it is, at least insists on building internal capacity—however selfish its ends. The irony? It echoes something far older, something America itself once embraced before it became the world’s free-market evangelist.
That something is the Hamiltonian model—an economic doctrine rooted in the ideas of Alexander Hamilton, Henry Clay, and the original American School of political economy. Long before neoliberalism, the United States was built on policies of protectionism, public infrastructure, industrial development, national banks, and strategic state intervention. These weren’t socialist ideas. They were nationalist ideas. And they worked.
It is here where the Philippines must reflect. If even MAGA wants a return to internal strength, what of the Filipino people? Why must the nation remain addicted to export zones, overseas remittances, and BPO-led growth?
The Marcos-Trump tableau may have been unintended, but it was symbolic: one nation rediscovering economic nationalism; the other still clinging to its colonial reflexes. It was a moment that exposed the Philippines’ confusion: trying to please both global capital and local survival, and in doing so, pleasing neither.
Perhaps the time has come to stop mimicking the language of foreign populists and start crafting a nationalist path—rooted not in slogans, but in sovereign policy. Call it Filipino Hamiltonianism. Call it a New Deal for the islands.
What matters is that the nation finally recognize the need for:
• State-led infrastructure and industrial development• Protection of strategic industries• Domestic food security and agrarian reform• Investment in science, education, and public utilities• Real labor empowerment, not just remittance dependency
In other words, a real economic nation—not just a neoliberal showroom.
The handshake between Marcos Jr. and Trump may go down in diplomatic photo albums. But to many Filipinos watching, it was not a moment of pride. It was a mirror. One that asked: is the country still waiting for someone else’s greatness, or isnthe country ready to build its own?
Now is the time to choose.
MAGA is not a model.
A New Deal is overdue.
And Hamilton’s ghost, oddly enough, might just be whispering from the past: build your own destiny—or be bought into someone else’s.