I don't know what kind it uses, but it's not phonetic, because the graphemes do not represent phonemes, despite your claims.
If English was truly phonetic, to name a few examples again: the pronunciation of "are" would most likely be a prefix of "area", since the graphemes for "are" are present in "area"; "read" and "read" would be read the same, since the graphemes for "read" and "read" are identical; the words "freak", "steak", and "break" would end with the same phonemes, since the graphemes for "eak" suffix are identical... and so on.
If it was not phonetic, what "idea" would the letter "r" represent? That it can represent different phonetics depending on other rules doesn't change that it represents phonetics.
English is an alphabetic language not a phonetic one.
In a phonetic language, you can pronounce a word just based on its written representation.
Just compare current and paste tense of read. It is spelled the same but pronounced differently.
You can argue it is an phonetically inconsistent language. However, you will find most of inconsistencies occur in the most frequently used words, making it hard for a beginner.
You are not wrong in idea, but you are wrong in specifics. Does English use a 1:1 phonetic language? No. Of course not. Just like most "functional programming" languages have a lot of differences between them. The colloquial use of the term is not nearly as precise as many think it is.
Even looking up the definition of "alphabetic" shows that that is often for phonetic languages. :D
If English doesn't use a phonetic writing system, then what kind does it use? Ideographic? Syllabic?