- President-elect Donald Trump has not outlined his policy towards Taiwan.
- On the campaign trail, he said Taiwan should pay the US for protection.
- In 2025, Taiwan will have to contend with uncertainty on whether the US will protect it, or play it.
On Wednesday, Taiwanese leader Lai Ching-te congratulated Donald Trump on winning the US election.
“I’m confident that the longstanding Taiwan-US partnership, built on shared values & interests, will continue to serve as a cornerstone for regional stability & lead to greater prosperity for us all,” Lai wrote on X.
But a second term for President-elect Donald Trump raises uncomfortable questions for Taiwan at a moment of mounting risks.
China’s has built the world’s largest navy and recently held war games around the island in a show of its power, as its leader has insisted on subsuming the self-ruled island of 23 million and its advanced economy. And now it is losing an American president who vowed to defend it with one who may make any defense contingent on favors in exchange.
The protection question
On December 2, 2016, before the start of his first presidential term, Trump took a call from then-Taiwanese leader Tsai Ing-Wen. The move broke with decades of US foreign policy and angered Chinese officials.
Trump would go on to maintain the confrontational stance with Beijing. In June 2017, Trump approved a $1.4 billion arms sale to Taiwan that included advanced missiles. That was followed up by another arms package in October 2018 worth around $330 million. Arms sales continued through 2019 and 2020.
And in 2018 — despite protests from the Chinese — the US said it would be spending $250 million on a new, de-facto embassy in Taipei.
The US has historically been vague about whether it would intervene should China try to unify with Taiwan by force, a policy known as “strategic ambiguity” intended to act as a deterrent. While Trump has not yet outlined his policy towards Taiwan this time around, he has made a handful of comments on the topic in the past few months.
“I think, Taiwan should pay us for defense,” Trump told Bloomberg Businessweek in June.
“You know, we’re no different than an insurance company. Taiwan doesn’t give us anything,” he added.
In October, he told The Wall Street Journal he “wouldn’t have to” use the US military to defend Taiwan because Chinese leader Xi Jinping “respects” him. Xi, however, has called for unification with Taiwan and US officials believe he’s ordered China’s military to be prepared to seize it by 2027.
The question, then, is what role the US will play in Taiwan’s defense going forward.
“There could well be a demand for Taiwan to ‘pay’ more for its own protection and perhaps to invest in the United States. This has been Trump’s line with many US allies,” said Chong Ja Ian, a political science professor at the National University of Singapore.
Taiwan has an unofficial ally in the US, but the Pentagon is not stationing military assets in Taiwan for its defense. The US aids Taiwan in other ways, like selling military equipment to it.
In October, the Biden administration approved $2 billion in arms sales to Taiwan, including radar systems and three National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems. The deal — which is pending congressional approval — was announced as China carried out large-scale military exercises around the island.
Taiwan’s terrain and advanced weapons, like Abrams tanks, Patriot missiles and F-16 fighters, make it a formidable adversary even for a larger Chinese force.
The US has threatened to menace a Chinese force with an “unmanned hellscape” of thousands of drones should they try to invade or blockade Taiwan.
Benjamin Blandin, a researcher at the Yokosuka Council on Asia-Pacific Studies, told BI it’s unclear what protection Taiwan could receive from the US under Trump even if it were to pay up.
Blandin added that it’s highly unlikely the US would send troops to defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese attack. The US, he said, has “never made an ironclad pledge to defend the island.”
A negotiation chip
Taiwan produces 92% of the world’s most advanced microchips. The Chinese and Taiwanese governments know Trump is a businessman at heart, James Chin, an Asian studies professor at the University of Tasmania, told BI.
What might work in the island’s favor, Chin said, is if Trump sees a benefit to helping Taiwan, to preserve its access to its technology.
However, “the Taiwanese will be super afraid that Trump will use Taiwan as a negotiation chip with Beijing,” Chin told BI.
Zhu Fenglian, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokesperson, made a similar point during a press conference in October.
“The US has always pursued an ‘America First’ policy, and Taiwan can turn from a ‘chess piece’ to a ‘sacrificial chess piece’ at any time,” Zhu said.
Taiwan’s next steps
Taiwan’s political leaders are going to have to navigate Trump’s unpredictability, experts say.
“Taiwan’s political leaders need to engage with those in Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and other fields who know Trump and have influence on Trump,” Chieh-Ting Yeh, the director of the think tank US Taiwan Watch, said on Wednesday, per Nikkei Asia.
In the meantime, Taiwan should invest in its own defense, said the experts BI spoke to.
“The good news for Taiwan is that Taiwan has bipartisan support in the US Congress,” Chin said.
“I suspect the US will not abandon Taiwan per se. But Trump may occasionally use the Taiwan chip card to balance off against China,” he added.
Blandin said he thinks Taiwan should now focus on “developing its own armed forces and prepare for contingency plans” if China were to launch an attack on them.
“Taiwan should really get inspiration from Ukraine, especially on the drone side. It would be a very efficient and cost-effective way to deter China,” he said.
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