MANILA, Philippines—President Rodrigo Duterte meets Monday with U.S. President Donald Trump, carrying with him a longstanding animosity toward America that has been tempered by Mr. Trump’s implicit support of his war on drugs and by U.S. help in crushing Islamic State-backed fighters who occupied a southern city.

Mr. Duterte lobbed repeated verbal attacks at the U.S. when he took office in June 2016, swiftly clashing with then-President Barack Obama on human-rights issues. Relations improved under Mr. Trump, who will be meeting Mr. Duterte at a summit of Asia-Pacific leaders under the umbrella of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Mr. Duterte, the summit host this year, greeted Mr. Trump with a handshake at a gala dinner Sunday for summit participants in Manila. When they meet on Monday, “there will be a lot of discussion about renewal of the U.S.-Philippines alliance and re-energizing that alliance,” a U.S. senior administration official said in a briefing before Mr. Trump departed for Manila.

The relationship was helped by a state-of-the-art U.S. drone and other aircraft that provided surveillance for the Philippine armed forces as they battled for five months to retake the city of Marawi from hundreds of militants linked to Islamic State. The Philippine military called the U.S. support a game-changer.

A spokesman for Mr. Duterte said that he and Mr. Trump “were genuinely pleased to have finally met” very briefly at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vietnam. Mr. Duterte said he and the American leader would have “an interesting time” in the Philippines and that they “share so many ideas.”


The U.S. ruled the Philippines between 1898 and 1946 and country was home to some of the largest overseas U.S. military bases before they were closed amid rising opposition in the early 1990s. Many Filipino elites are educated in the U.S. and large numbers have family in both countries.

The meeting is a chance for two men viewed at home as antiestablishment populists to find common ground, analysts say. The Philippine leader “is street smart,” said Clarita Carlos, professor of political science at the University of the Philippines. “Trump and Duterte are both straight talkers,” she said. “They should get along well.”

Mr. Obama canceled a planned meeting with Mr. Duterte in September 2016 after the Philippine leader demanded that the meeting not touch on human rights and appeared to curse the U.S. leader. In a moment of frustration, Mr. Duterte used an expression in Tagalog that translates roughly to “son of a bitch.” His speeches are frequently sprinkled with profanities.

The election of Mr. Trump “has dramatically recast America’s troubled alliance with Duterte,” said Richard Heydarian, assistant professor of international affairs at De La Salle University. “The influential Philippine military’s long institutionalized ties with the Pentagon and growing cooperation in the counter terrorism arena have also reinforced this gradual revival in bilateral ties.”


While Mr. Duterte has been open about his ambivalence toward the U.S. relationship, which he says has been unfair on the Philippines, his declaration to establish a "separation’’ from the U.S.—made during a visit last year to China, increasingly America’s strategic competitor in the region—hasn’t panned out in policy.

“Duterte slowly changed his mind when he realized the geopolitical realities of U.S. being hegemon here [in Asia] but slowly being overtaken by China,” said Ms. Carlos. U.S. assistance fighting Islamist extremists “changed his tone to more positive direction,” she said.

Still, Mr. Duterte also has sought closer ties with China and Russia in what he calls a new “independent foreign policy.” He said a meeting last week with Russian President Vladimir Putin “renewed” their friendship, and after a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping said he sees “a very bright future for our relationship” with China.

There are still issues on which the Philippines and the U.S. don’t agree, such as the violent crackdown on drug use by Mr. Duterte that activists say has led to the deaths of more than 13,000 people, including many allegedly executed by police. Mr. Duterte denies that police have been involved in extrajudicial killings and his government disputes the body count.


U.S. officials say Mr. Trump, who has not openly criticized the drug war, intends to bring it up and discuss “ways in which that war could be prosecuted that conform with Philippine law and international norms for human rights.”

Another thorny issue is security in the South China Sea. The Philippines, along with the rest of Southeast Asia, depends on the U.S. for regional maritime security as a counterbalance to Chinese reclamation and militarization of disputed islands in the resource-rich waterway.

Last year, the Philippines won a landmark arbitration award that effectively invalidated Chinese claims to the South China Sea, but Mr. Duterte hasn’t pressed the victory, instead reaching out to Beijing for investment in infrastructure. In a speech Sunday, Mr. Duterte said the South China Sea was “better left untouched.”

Write to Jake Maxwell Watts at jake.watts@wsj.com