Taiwan Security and Arms Sales

U.S. officials say the Trump administration has put on hold the announcement of a roughly $13 billion arms package for Taiwan, including air‑defense missiles, even though senior Republican and Democratic lawmakers informally approved it after the State Department sent it to Capitol Hill in January. According to those officials, the White House instructed agencies not to move the sale forward for now to avoid antagonizing Chinese leader Xi Jinping before President Trump’s planned summit in Beijing in April. The package, larger than the $11 billion sale the administration announced in December, has been left to languish at State despite public U.S. assurances that its decades‑old security commitment to Taiwan remains unchanged. The State Department declined to discuss the pending sale but issued a generic statement about the “enduring U.S. commitment” to Taiwan, while the White House referred questions back to State. The delay underscores how the administration is weighing near‑term summit optics and Trump’s personal diplomacy with Xi against longer‑term deterrence in the Taiwan Strait at a time when Congress has already signaled support for more robust Taiwanese air defenses.