President Trump will meet with Filipino President Duterte, who says he doesn't 'care about human rights'

Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte
(Image credit: Ted Aljibe/Getty Images)

President Trump has invited controversial Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte to Washington to reaffirm the U.S.-Philippines alliance, the White House said Saturday. The two leaders spoke by phone, and Trump "enjoyed the conversation," expressing his belief that the two nations are "now heading in a very positive direction."

A statement from Duterte's office was similarly friendly. "The discussion that transpired between the presidents was warm, with President Trump expressing his understanding and appreciation of the challenges facing the Philippine president, especially on the matter of dangerous drugs," Duterte's camp said.

Duterte has come under broad criticism for his brutal prosecution of the drug war, which includes encouragement of extrajudicial killings. "My order is shoot to kill you," he notoriously said of drug dealers. "I don't care about human rights, you'd better believe me."

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.