Last December, the Trump administration announced the largest arms sale to Taiwan in history: an $11 billion weapons package that included everything from drones and Javelin missiles to the HIMARS rocket systems. The sale, which still needs to be formally submitted to Congress, provided Taiwanese officials with a bit of relief. After all, Trump has often sounded ambivalent about whether he would support the island’s defense amid escalating Chinese aggression.
Now, however, Trump’s Beijing summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in April has put a wrench into the original plans.
The Trump administration is reportedly discussing whether to delay the $11 billion sale in order to preserve a high-stakes meeting with the Chinese leader. The case for pushing through the arms package is compelling. While unifying the self-ruled democratic island with the mainland has been a core policy goal of the Chinese Communist Party ever since it emerged victorious in the 1949 Chinese civil war, Taiwan holds special resonance for Xi.
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