The US has agreed to Taiwan’s request to defer the deadline for an initial payment on a key US-made weapons system amid a budget impasse, Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) yesterday told lawmakers at the Legislative Yuan.
Koo confirmed that the first payment for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) could be postponed beyond yesterday’s deadline, likely to about May when the US expects to finalize a contract with a supplier for the US$4.05 billion sale.
The military was also in talks with the US for payment deferrals for three other weapons systems also approved for sale to Taiwan, but similarly facing budget issues, he said.
Photo: CNA
The initial payments for the four planned purchases total approximately US$79 million, Koo said.
The US on Dec. 17 last year announced the sale of the HIMARS; M109A7 self-propelled howitzers (US$4.03 billion); tube-launched, optically tracked, wire command link guided anti-tank missiles (US$353 million); and Javelin missiles (US$375 million) as part of a broader US$11.1 billion arms package.
The US sent letters of offer and acceptance (LOAs) for the four weapons systems early last month and this month, which Taiwan needed to sign by March 15 and Thursday last week respectively, followed by a first payment on each system.
An LOA is a binding document confirming that a foreign government agrees to purchase military equipment under a regulated US program. It also authorizes the US government to contract with defense manufacturers to procure the systems.
The legislature authorized the Cabinet to sign the LOAs just before the March 15 deadline, even though funding for the first payment had yet to be secured.
The ruling Democratic Progressive Party government wants to pay for most of the systems in the US$11.1 billion arms package and other big-ticket defense needs through a NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.07 billion) supplementary budget.
However, that remains in limbo because of a lack of support from opposition parties.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party, which together hold a majority in the Legislative Yuan, have proposed their own supplementary defense bills of NT$380 billion and NT$400 billion respectively, with no compromise seemingly in sight.
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