Posted on 05/22/2026 6:43:54 AM PDT by Cronos
USA has paused a $14bn arms sale to Taiwan, amid significant pressure from China.
The shipment was expected to include equipment vital to the island’s defence, but just a week after Trump visited Beijing for meetings with Xi, the deal has been put on hold.
US said it was pausing the deal because it needed to preserve its stockpile for the war in Iran – but in the same message, it insisted it still had enough weapons.
Hung Cao, the acting US navy secretary, said: “Right now we’re doing a pause in order to make sure we have the munitions we need for Epic Fury – which we have plenty. We’re just making sure we have everything, but then the foreign military sales will continue when the administration deems necessary.”
That was met with scepticism in Taiwan.
Kuo Ya-hui, spokesman of the Taiwan Presidential Office, said that while Taipei had taken note of Mr Cao’s comments, Taipei has not received any information indicating that the US intends to make any adjustments to the sale.
Cho Jung-tai, Taiwan’s premier, also said that Taiwan would continue to pursue arms purchases, according to local outlet FTV News.
“Using an arms sale to Taiwan that hasn’t even been notified to Congress and hasn’t been included in the production plan as the target is extremely far-fetched and seems more like an excuse.”
Adding to this sentiment is the recent $100m (£74m) missile-system sale to Ukraine, approved by the State Department on the same day.
Trump said as he returned home: “I have to speak to the person that right now is, you know who he is, that’s running Taiwan,” referring to Lai Ching-te, Taiwan’s president.
He added on Wednesday: “I’ll speak to him. I speak to everybody... We’ll work on that, the Taiwan problem.”
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
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China has too much power thanks to Jimmy Carter.
Gracefully surrender the things of youth: birds, clean air, tuna, Taiwan.
China is a paper Tiger and will never military invade Taiwan .
I can see that we don’t want to drain our inventory any further.
Do you really know what you are talking about?
It’s a bargaining chip and we got the right negotiator. Imagine Biden’s people doing it in Anchorage.
Good. Formosa belongs to the motherland.
I do not believe Trump would do/ allow this
They don’t have to. They have so many moles embedded there, the status quo is preferable for them.
No, they were part time US allies after Nixon against the Soviets. It was Bush, Clinton, Bush II, Obama, Trump, Biden and now Trump that have been building China.
China has nukes. They might not use them on Taiwan, but I wouldn't call any nation with nukes a paper tiger.
That’s my guess . They might get Taiwan diplomatically at some point but they will never physically invade it.
China was still isolated until Mao’s death in 1976, long after Nixon left the White House.
I made my living off foreign military sales. No sensible nation should rely on an ally for critical weapons if that ally is likely to do a political 180 every four years. And in the case of democrats, it could be a 180 plus a sideslip through The Twilight Zone.
It’s a bargaining chip for them.
Well, Trump sure does know how to negotiate defeat out of victory.
“Formosa belongs to the motherland.”
A sentence I never expected to see on FR.
Maybe Trump will give Alaska back to the Russians in return for a ceasefire in Ukraine. He’d be rid of Lisa Murkowsi as well. A win-win solution.
The US should never give in to Chinese pressure, especially now. And that has nothing to do with Taiwan. China is on the defensive. We should not be giving it a win on anything. A dictatorship lives and dies by whether it appears strong both domestically and internationally. The more we pressure China, the weaker its government becomes. So we should be humiliating the Chinese government by selling as many weapons as possible to Taiwan and letting China scream.
What will happen to Taiwan? Who knows? Ultimately it will rejoin China. That is the Taiwanese policy too. But it wants to maintain its system and it has zero faith that China will let it. Especially after what China did to Hong Kong, which was monumentally stupid on China’s part. One day after Xi is gone, maybe China will have a more liberal president again and the West will use that as a chance to jump at reintegrating Taiwan with the mainland.
Yeah it’s too bad Trump didn’t take you to China with him because he has so little experience in negotiating.
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