US approves first military sale to Taiwan since Donald Trump’s return to presidency
Washington is Taipei’s biggest arms supplier and a key deterrent to a potential Chinese attack, but Donald Trump’s past remarks on Taiwan raised doubts about defending the island.
The United States has approved $US330m ($505mm) worth of parts and equipment in its first military sale to Taiwan since US President Donald Trump’s return to the White House, the island’s foreign ministry said on Friday.
Washington is Taipei’s biggest arms supplier and a key deterrent to a potential Chinese attack, but Mr Trump’s remarks on Taiwan have raised doubts about his willingness to defend the democratic island. Beijing claims Taiwan is part of its territory and has threatened to use force to bring it under its control.
“This marks the first time the new Trump administration has announced an arms sale to Taiwan,” the foreign ministry said, after the US State Department approved the package.
Taiwan requested “non-standard components, spare and repair parts, consumables and accessories, and repair and return support for F-16, C-130, and Indigenous Defence Fighter aircraft”, a statement posted on the US Defence Security Co-operation Agency said.
Taiwan has its own defence industry, but the island’s military would be massively outgunned in a conflict with China and remains heavily reliant on US weapons for self-defence. While the US is legally bound to provide arms to Taiwan, Washington has long maintained “strategic ambiguity” when it comes to whether it would deploy its military to defend the island from a Chinese attack.
Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te has been at pains to find favour with Mr Trump, vowing to raise defence spending to more than 3 per cent of GDP next year and 5 per cent by 2030. Mr Lai has pledged to boost investment in the US as his government tries to reduce Mr Trump’s 20 per cent tariff on Taiwanese exports.
But his government’s plans for a special defence budget of up to $US32bn could be derailed by the main opposition Kuomintang party, which controls the parliament with the help of the Taiwan People’s Party.
Opposition politicians have expressed frustration over the backlog of US deliveries to Taiwan, worth billions of dollars, caused by Covid-19 supply chain disruptions and US weapons shipments to Ukraine and Israel.
The Beijing-friendly KMT’s new chair Cheng Li-wun told AFP recently that Taiwan cannot afford to increase defence spending above 3 per cent of GDP, saying “Taiwan isn’t an ATM”.
The US arms sale is the first since December 2024 under former president Joe Biden.
It comes as Beijing summoned the Japanese ambassador over remarks the country’s new prime minister made about Taiwan.
Last week, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi told Japan’s parliament that armed attacks on Taiwan could warrant sending troops to support the island under “collective self-defence”.
If an emergency in Taiwan entails “battleships and the use of force, then that could constitute a situation threatening the survival (of Japan), any way you slice it”, Ms Takaichi told parliament.
China’s Vice Foreign Minister Sun Weidong summoned the Japanese ambassador on Thursday, according to a statement on the foreign ministry’s website.
Beijing’s foreign ministry on Thursday also slammed Ms Takaichi’s remarks and said it “will by no means tolerate” it.
AFP
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