US arms sales to Taiwan next year could reach a record high, pending the approval of a special national defense budget by Taipei later this year, the head of the US-Taiwan Business Council said on Sunday.
Speaking to reporters before the annual US-Taiwan Defense Industry Conference, which opened on Sunday in Ellicott City, Maryland, Rupert Hammond-Chambers said that the Executive Yuan had already submitted its defense budget for next year to the legislature.
A special defense budget, which could be introduced next month, could reach NT$1 trillion (US$32.63 billion), Hammond-Chambers said, citing Taiwanese media reports.
Photo: CNA
Such a bill would demonstrate to US President Donald Trump the “significant support” that Taiwanese parties across the political spectrum have for the defense of their country, he said.
The lack of arms sales to Taiwan nine months into Trump’s second term was “relatively normal,” given new administrations’ habit of first reviewing the policies of their predecessors, as well as delays in confirming political appointees, he said.
Similarly, US media reports that Trump blocked a military aid package to Taiwan amid trade negotiations with China were “not our understanding at all,” Hammond-Chambers said.
Trump favors selling weapons, rather than providing military aid, out of consideration for US taxpayers, he said.
Despite the lack of sales this year, next year “is potentially the largest gross total in value of arms sales to Taiwan in any one year,” he said.
Many of those possible sales are “related to the special [defense] budget that will be submitted in a few weeks,” he added.
Hammond-Chambers said that he could not disclose what the sales would include, except to say that they would be “close to 100 percent asymmetric” and consist mostly of items Taiwan has previously purchased.
This year’s US-Taiwan Defense Industry Conference would focus heavily on coproduction and joint development of equipment such as uncrewed vehicles for Taiwan’s defense, he said.
He said he agreed with President William Lai (賴清德), among others in Taiwan, about the growing demand for developing “non-red supply chains” — free of Chinese influence — in defense and security.
As the need for non-red manufacturing networks increases, Taiwan “is in a good position” to partner with the US or European countries to develop drones for the Western market, Hammond-Chambers said.
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