Secretary of State Marco Rubio has insisted that U.S. foreign policy on Taiwan remains unchanged. However, the Trump administration’s pause of a $14 billion arms sale to Taiwan and President Trump’s cavalier abandonment of the “Six Assurances”—Washington’s decades-old pledge to sustain Taiwan’s defense capabilities and never negotiate its security with Beijing—represent a dangerous and fundamental shift. By treating Taiwan’s security as a mere “negotiating chip,” as the president told Fox News, Trump is rewarding Xi Jinping for reportedly haranguing him in Beijing about America becoming a “declining nation” as well as the dangers of U.S. support for Taiwan. Xi is no doubt delighted at the positive results of his tongue-lashing and likely relishes the chance to bargain away U.S. security commitments in the Pacific. In fact, Trump’s apparent appeasement does not signal continuity in U.S. policy on Taiwan—it is a profound betrayal that could severely weaken the entire U.S. alliance network in the Pacific and alter the regional balance of power to America’s detriment.
Beijing views Taiwan as the last piece of unfinished business from the Chinese civil war and eventual “reunification” (in quotes because Taiwan has never been subject to PRC jurisdiction) as the essential touchstone of the Chinese Communist Party’s political legitimacy. While “peaceful reunification” has historically been Beijing’s avowed preference, it has never taken force off the table and has made clear that moves toward formal independence would trigger war. The electoral three-peat of presidential candidates from Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party—who have always been averse to tying the island’s future to the mainland—has been anathema to Xi’s grand vision for national rejuvenation, which is premised, above all else, on “reunification.” Under Xi’s leadership, Beijing has invested heavily in readying the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to be able to seize Taiwan if so ordered. Provocative military drills and maneuvers in the air and waters around the island have become disturbingly routine complements to PRC pressure on Taiwan in the cyber, economic, and diplomatic realms.
For its part, Washington has always considered peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait to be in the U.S. national interest, and arms sales to bolster the island’s ability to deter or defeat a PRC invasion have been a staple of the robust (if unofficial) U.S.-Taiwan relationship ever since 1979. These arms sales, together with Beijing’s perception of American military might and the possibility of U.S. intervention in any cross-Strait hostilities, have helped keep the peace for decades by deterring any overtly aggressive moves being contemplated in Beijing.
Why does peace across the Taiwan Strait matter so much to America? Partly because of the values and people-to-people connections we share with the vigorous Chinese-speaking democracy in Taiwan. But there are more strategic reasons. Taiwan is located at the center of the Western Pacific’s first island chain, which blocks the access of a potentially adversarial PLA Navy to U.S. territories in the second island chain (Guam and the Northern Marianas) and through which the globe’s most important commercial arteries flow. To Taiwan’s north are Japan and South Korea, and to its immediate south is the Philippines. Like Taiwan, all three of these U.S. treaty allies have been on the receiving end of PRC bullying and coercion in recent years and are concerned about Beijing’s designs to dominate their region. Geostrategy aside, Taiwan is also America’s fourth-largest trade partner and the source of the vast majority of advanced semiconductors needed for everything from making advanced weapons systems to powering the AI revolution. In short, Taiwan is a partner that brings outsized value to the United States in terms of security, economics, technology, and shared values, and we would never want to see it forced at gunpoint to bend the knee to Beijing.
This insistence that Taiwan be free from PRC coercion has been consistently reflected in the three U.S.-China joint communiqués; the Taiwan Relations Act; the Six Assurances that the Reagan administration made to Taipei; and the policies of every president since the normalization of ties with Beijing in 1979. In fact, the Trump administration’s “2025 National Security Strategy” (NSS) restated the case with admirable clarity:
[America] should focus on pressing our First Island Chain allies and partners … to spend more on their own defense, and most importantly to invest in capabilities aimed at deterring aggression. This will interlink maritime security issues along the First Island Chain while reinforcing U.S. and allies’ capacity to deny any attempt to seize Taiwan or achieve a balance of forces so unfavorable to us as to make defending the island impossible.
Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te took the 2025 NSS at face value, and he is now in a horribly awkward position. His administration has aligned itself with U.S. interests to a remarkable extent since taking office in 2024, agreeing to invest additional hundreds of billions of dollars in the U.S. tech industry and expending substantial political capital to get legislative approval for the increased funding Taiwan needed to buy the American defensive weaponry that makes up this proposed package. Now he is twisting in the wind as Trump weighs Taiwan’s security against his desire to buddy up to Xi Jinping—and his political rivals mock his naive trust in Washington.
It is true that the timing and composition of Taiwan arms sales have always been subject to diplomatic considerations, but U.S. presidents since the 1980s have stuck by the assurance (one of the canonical Six Assurances) that we would not consult with Beijing on such sales. This makes sense: Why bother asking the fox if he’d rather we left the door to the chicken coop unlocked? The Trump administration has demolished that sensible, long-standing policy even as the fox is pawing at the door handle. The administration should side with its advisers; members of Congress (several of whom are drafting bipartisan legislation to shore up the Six Assurances); and the democratically elected leaders of Taiwan who are only asking to buy made-in-the-USA arms with which to defend their own freedom—not with the authoritarian leader who seeks to take it from them.