The Presidential Office today denied a local media report that said President William Lai (賴清德) was planning to make an overseas trip in the near future and that talks were underway with the US on a Lai stopover.
"The president currently has no plans to travel overseas," Presidential Office spokesperson Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) said in a statement, adding that "any such arrangement will be reported to the public in due time."
Photo: Taipei Times
The statement was released in response to a report by the Chinese-language United Daily News earlier in the day saying that Lai was planning to travel to two of Taiwan's formal diplomatic allies, Paraguay and Guatemala, and make stopovers on US soil.
Quoting an unnamed source, the report said Washington only agreed to allow Lai to make a stopover in Hawaii instead of a mainland US city "due to the sensitive timing of the upcoming US presidential race."
Despite a lack of formal diplomatic relations, Washington has over the years allowed Taiwanese presidents to make stopovers on US soil during their trips to visit Taiwan's diplomatic allies.
How they are received in the US is often interpreted by the media as a sign of how Washington wants to handle its relations with Taipei.
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