Heavy subsidies to our own industry are definitely a better alternative, but our politicians would rather cry “China bad” and further line the pockets of our ruling class

Not really different anywhere as far as I know. Old ships usually have tons of cancerous/toxic material as part of their construction so nobody wants to deal with salvaging them for free

You could still pay someone to deposit the $100 bills and it would take 1/100 the time to reach the same account balance

The US is already busy supporting two other wars right now. I doubt the Philippines wants to push their luck on how much support we would be willing/able to provide.