close unofficial ties with Taiwan<\/a> and is bound by law to sell arms to the island for its self-defense \u2013 despite acknowledging Beijing\u2019s position that Taiwan is part of China.\n <\/p>\n\n The island has been ramping up military purchases in recent years as it comes under increasing pressure from Beijing, with People\u2019s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft and ships present almost daily around Taiwan as well as regular large-scale exercises in and over the surrounding waters.\n <\/p>\n
\n The US announcement of the sales came through the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which manages US foreign military sales. The deals still require congressional approval, but Taiwan enjoys general bipartisan support in the US Congress.\n <\/p>\n
\n Taiwan\u2019s Defense Ministry said that among the eight items, five \u2013 HIMARS, missiles and drones \u2013 are meant to be paid for as part of an historic $40 billion special defense budget President Lai Ching-te proposed in late November, which has yet to gain approval in Taiwan\u2019s legislature.\n <\/p>\n
\n That budget focuses on procuring precision artillery, long-range precision strike missiles, air defense, anti-ballistic and anti-armor missiles, drones and counter-drone systems, AI-powered systems, and weapons jointly developed by US and Taiwan.\n <\/p>\n
\n It also looks to strengthen Taiwan\u2019s defense capabilities, particularly the \u201cT-Dome\u201d air defense system, which Lai announced in October without providing details.\n <\/p>\n
\n Raymond Greene, director of the American Institute in Taiwan, Washington\u2019s de facto embassy on the island, said recently he expected Taiwan\u2019s legislature would eventually approve the increased military spending.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cEvery budget issue has to go through the legislative process, but I remain very confident that at the end of the day, that all the parties in Taiwan will come together on behalf of increased defense spending, because I think there is a shared sense of the needs given the regional security environment, the threats Taiwan faces,\u201d Greene said.\n <\/p>\n
\n The $11.1 billion package is the second arms deal with Taiwan announced by the second Trump administration, following a $330 million deal in November for spare and repair parts for aircraft.\n <\/p>\n
\n When that deal was announced, Taiwanese presidential spokesperson Karen Kuo said the island would be increasing defense spending to more than 3% of GDP in the next year and to 5% of GDP by 2030.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Taipei, Taiwan \u00a0\u2014\u00a0 The United States and Taiwan have announced an $11.1 billion arms package that if completed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":352676,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-352675","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352675\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}