Why the U.S. Should Rethink a Freeze on Taiwan Arms Sales

A fter President Donald Trump met with Xi Jinping in Washington last month, U.S. Ambassador to China David Perdue startled many observers when he said in an interview that the president had made an off-the-cuff offer to sell American weapons to Beijing. The offer must have surprised the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, who seeks not to buy American weapons but rather to stop their sale to Taiwan.

Washington should resist Xi’s pressure to keep arms sales to Taiwan in a holding pattern. Not only does Taiwan need these weapons for its defense, but backing down in the face of such pressure would signal to every ally and adversary that American commitments are negotiable.

The American people should be clear about what these arms sales entail. As always, the U.S. would be providing Taiwan with the means for self-defense, consistent with the Taiwan Relations Act. The stronger Taiwan becomes, the less likely it is that American soldiers will have to defend it. The roughly $14 billion package, potentially the largest in Taiwan’s history, would largely consist of interceptor missiles and air-defense systems designed to shoot down incoming drones, missiles, and aircraft — not start a war. That Beijing treats even this as intolerable says less about the weapons than about what China actually fears: a Taiwan hard enough to deter attack.

U.S. arms sales to Taiwan have proceeded for decades despite ritual protest from Beijing. It is a familiar pattern in which China objects, the sale goes through, and the relationship absorbs it. That has been the case precisely because Washington has not treated routine Chinese objections as a veto. If Trump decides to withhold this package, Beijing will not read it as a one-time favor or a gesture of goodwill but as a new red line — and proof that pressure can kill a Taiwan arms sale. Washington would be trading a single package for what Beijing would see as a permanent veto over every sale that follows.

This arms-sale freeze comes just as China intensifies its campaign to isolate Taiwan through political rhetoric, military action, and diplomatic pressure. China aims to convince the world that its neighbor belongs to Beijing, and that a fight over Taipei will be more trouble than it’s worth. The U.S., meanwhile, has supported Taiwan’s autonomy for decades with economic and legally mandated military support, while carefully avoiding an official recognition of its statehood. That balance worked when China’s military was decades behind. It no longer is. What is now required is an acceleration of weapons sales to Taiwan, not a slowdown.

Taiwan, for its part, is not sitting still. President Lai Ching-te has pushed defense spending to roughly 3.32 percent of GDP this year, with a goal of 5 percent by 2030, and proposed a NT$1.12 trillion (roughly $35 billion) defense budget. Taiwan’s military has also shifted its focus to mobile coastal-defense missiles, sea mines, drones, and hardened air defenses to make an invasion prohibitively costly. This is the “porcupine” strategy defense planners have long urged Taipei to adopt, and it is now being executed. Taiwan can raise the money and reorganize its doctrine, but without the U.S. approving and delivering hardware on schedule, the strategy has no teeth.

Beijing has spent the past half-decade ratcheting up military exercises that surround Taiwan in a not-so-subtle rehearsal of a blockade or invasion. China has further shown how the pressure of its territorial ambitions is not limited to Taiwan. In recent months, Chinese coast guard vessels have rammed a Filipino ship and its air force jets have locked radar on Japanese military aircraft. These are not isolated incidents, but a pattern of Beijing testing how far it can push before someone resists.

Satellite images also reveal which militaries China is preparing to attack, and where it is rehearsing to strike. It has built targets that imitate U.S.-made military equipment used by Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea. Along its southeast coast, Chinese forces routinely rehearse landing troops on a beach using specialized vessels designed for an invasion of Taiwan. Even more explicitly, China constructed a training mockup of the area around Taiwan’s Presidential Office. Built in full view of U.S. and other nations’ satellites, these actions go beyond deterrence theater and serve as both real training aids and clear political messaging.

Selling Taiwan U.S.-made weapons is more than a moral endeavor to defend democracy and free societies, though it is certainly that. Beyond the human cost, a war in Taiwan would upend global trade and be catastrophic for the semiconductor supply chains that much of the American tech industry depends on. But China is likely to think twice about attacking a Taiwan capable of defending itself, and a free Taiwan can continue to operate as an essential node in the global economy. Deterrence is the only way to avoid a crisis or direct conflict with a nuclear power.

By withholding support for Taiwan, President Trump is less holding on to a negotiating chip than he is playing into Xi’s hands. The freeze gives Beijing exactly what it asked for — for free — at the exact moment Taiwan is doing its part to prepare its defenses, and it sets a precedent in China’s favor. If the administration wants a stronger hand the next time it meets with Xi, arming Taiwan is how you get one. The current approach will not improve relations with the People’s Republic of China, but it will undermine the defense of a crucial partner already spending more, reorganizing its military, and asking for the tools to defend itself.

Dan Blumenthal is co-director of the Coalition Defense of Taiwan and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Brady Africk is a research analyst at AEI focused on open source intelligence and satellite imagery analysis.