And despite the Philippines being the most pro-Trump nation in Pew's spring 37-country survey, confidence in Trump now is lower than it was in then-President Barack Obama in 2015The Philippines under Duterte ha大发体育s tried to develop an independent foreign policy rather than being a US puppet most of the timeSince becoming Philippines president in June 2016, Rodrigo Duterte has refused to be used by the US to advance its strategyThat was certainly not the policy under Obama when he launched the US pivot-to-Asia policy, trying to gang up US allies on ChinaAnd on global economic status, abou大发体育t half of Filipinos (49 percent) say that the US is still the leading economic power, but that is down from 66 percent who said so in 2015The survey released on Sept 21 bore a title saying people in the Philippines still favor the United States over China, but that the gap is narrowing