President Ferdinand Marcos Jr has arrived in Washington DC Sunday afternoon for a five-day official visit aimed at reaffirming the long-standing alliance between the Philippines and the United States.

Watch: President Ferdinand Marcos Jr arrives in the United States for a 5-day official visit pic.twitter.com/g1DtlIhzUT

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This is the first time in more than ten years that a Philippine President embarked on an official visit to the United States.

While in the US, Marcos Jr is set to hold bilateral talks with US President Joe Biden at the White House Monday.

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During the meeting, both leaders are set to discuss the situation in the Indo Pacific region, as well as the need to bring the Philippine and US’ decades-old Mutual Defense Treaty to the 21st century to better respond to the changing geopolitical landscape.

• Marcos 'determined to forge even closer' ties with US during 5-day visit

“The reason it has to evolve is because conditions are changing, the conditions under which the Mutual Defense Treaty was written, the original one, are completely different from the conditions that we are facing now. China of course has become very dominant in the region. The United States has become less so, but then other players like ASEAN member states, all the Asian states they have also changed their position in the world,” Marcos Jr said in a media briefing aboard his flight en route to Washington.

“That’s why we call it a continuing evolution because we have to be able to respond to the situation as it happens. And once the situation change, we should also be able to be responsive to that. So yun ang pinag-uusapan natin, and all of these things, that’s really one of the main purposes of the visit,” he continued.

President Marcos Jr is also expected to push for “greater economic engagement, particularly through trade and investment and science, technology, and innovation cooperation, between the United States and the Philippines” during this trip.

“Marami tayong gustong gawin firstly on the economic level and again, on our priority sectors, agriculture, power, infrastructure, all of these new technologies that we have been discussing. There’s even a proposal for the battery technologies to come to the Philippines. All of these things, that’s on the economic level.

The Philippine leader says he will also meet with major American companies as part of efforts to encourage more investments in the Philippines.

“Again, on the economic side, we’ll have to go into detail meeting with the big companies who we were not able to see in the other trips: sa New York, saka dun sa Davos, ngayon may iba pa tayong makakameeting. Again we’ll show them what the situation is in the Philippines and hopefully for them to bring investments to our country,” he said.

President Marcos Jr’s itinerary in the US also includes a meeting with members of the Filipino community in Washington as well as a policy speech.

Immediately after his visit on May 4, Marcos Jr will fly straight to the United Kingdom to attend the historic coronation of King Charles III in London on May 6.