US President Donald Trump will likely approve the first arms sale to Taiwan of his second term after Taipei passes its special national defense budget, a former US defense official said on Tuesday.
Randall Schriver, a former US assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs, told the Central News Agency (CNA) that “a lot will depend” on whether Taiwan passes the special budget, which is expected to be introduced later this month.
“If it’s as large as Taiwanese officials are suggesting, then I think there will be a lot of support in the United States for approving those sales,” Schriver said, adding that it would make “no sense” to ask Taiwan to raise its defense spending and then not approve weapons sales.
Photo courtesy of the Presidential Office
President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration has proposed earmarking NT$113.2 billion (US$3.69 billion) for national defense as part of a NT$550 billion special budget to extend the nation’s wartime reserves from 30 days to 120 days. It has also proposed hiking defense spending to NT$949.5 billion, or 3.32 percent of GDP, next year, although both proposals are likely to face scrutiny in the opposition-controlled legislature.
Schriver, chairman of the Institute for Indo-Pacific Security, said that while Taiwan’s defense spending commitments should be “applauded,” the focus should be on how the money is spent, rather than how much.
Aside from expanding military-to-military training programs, the US should widen its focus beyond an invasion scenario and help Taiwan counter Chinese “gray zone” activities, he said.
In practice, this could involve selling Taiwan capabilities that are less useful in an invasion scenario, such as E-2D Hawkeye airborne early warning aircraft or MH-60 helicopters, he said.
On the possibility of joint US-Taiwan weapons production, which US Senator Roger Wicker said he expects to occur, Schriver said it would help address the shortages the US faces both for its own military and those of its partners.
More production capacity would be helpful for both sides, and more in Taiwan, specifically, would mean that those weapons would not have to be brought in by ship or air in the event of a crisis, he said.
CNA also asked Schriver about concerns that Trump might use Taiwan as a bargaining chip, given his transactional approach to diplomacy. Media reports in the past few months said that Trump had blocked a military aid package to Taiwan and a proposed stopover by Lai as he negotiated a trade deal with China.
Despite these issues, Schriver said he had “not seen any indication that Taiwan is going to be dumped or bargained away.”
While transactional, Trump “does not take bad deals,” and would thus be unlikely to agree to anything that makes [Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] look stronger or gives China the upper hand, Schriver said.
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