Duterte later expressed regret over the comments.
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National Security Council spokesman Ned Price says Obama will meet instead with President Park Geun-hye of South Korea.
US President Barack Obama preferred not to meet with President of the Philippines, who promised to curse “the son of a whore” at the ASEAN summit for all the disrespect that the United States had paid to the Philippines. In his Tuesday statement, Duterte thanked Obama for emphasizing “the importance for China to abide by its obligations under worldwide law” at an earlier Group of 20 summit. “He’s the most powerful president of any country on the planet”, Duterte said, after arriving in Vientiane, Laos, for a summit of Southeast Asian nations, in which Obama is also taking part. The U.S. provides hundreds of millions of dollars in annual assistance to the Philippine military.
After Washington called off Tuesday’s bilateral meeting between Obama and Duterte in response, the Philippines issued two statements expressing regret.
The United States then decided the meeting planned for Tuesday wouldn’t be productive. “We will not stop until the last drug lord, the last financier, and the last pusher have surrendered or [been] put behind bars – or below the ground, if they so wish”, Duterte said during his State of the Nation speech on July 25.
Obama, the first sitting US president to visit Laos, said on Tuesday he wanted to address the legacy of USA bombing during the Vietnam War. What he has delivered is a war on suspected drug users, dealers and their families.
The de facto apology came one day after Duterte warned Obama not to question him about his country’s extrajudicial killings in a war on drugs.
It is the president’s first overseas trip – an opportunity that many leaders would have used to cement ties with neighbouring countries and superpowers like China and the US.
Duterte has earlier cursed the pope and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
When faced with criticisms over an apparent spate of extrajudicial killings in his crime war by the United Nations, he responded with what has become familiar abuse.
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On Tuesday, Duterte met Singapore’s prime minister and was later to hold talks with the leaders of Japan and Vietnam. The talks are to focus on several major issues, such as global security, human rights, and tensions in the South China Sea. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam have rival claims. But Duterte has said it is “better to continually engage China in a diplomatic dialogue rather than anger officials there”, starkly at odds with his recent comments about Obama.
