U.S. forces conduct the annual Philippines-U.S. amphibious landing exercise on the shore of the South China Sea Friday in San Antonio, Philippines.

NEWS BRIEF The Philippines announced Friday plans to cancel future joint military exercises with the United States in the South China Sea—a marked break in defense cooperation between the long-standing allies that follows weeks of rhetoric aimed at the U.S. by the new Filipino president.

“This year would be the last,” Rodrigo Duterte, the president of the Philippines, said Friday of the countries’ joint military exercises.

Addressing the U.S. directly, he said: “For as long as I am there, do not treat us like a doormat because you’ll be sorry for it. I will not speak with you. I can always go to China.”

In addition to halting military exercises between the two countries, Delfin Lorenzana, the country’s defense minister, said Duterte hopes to dismiss U.S. troops helping monitor and fight Islamist militants in the southern part of the country—a task he said the Philippines would assume once it acquired the necessary intelligence-gathering capabilities.

In response to the possibility of the coordinated drills between the two countries ending, Roger Hollenbeck, a U.S. military spokesman, said, “I have nothing to do with that and we are going to continue to work together, we’ve got a great relationship.”