{"id":476601,"date":"2026-02-18T22:05:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T22:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/476601\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T22:05:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T22:05:09","slug":"trump-says-he-is-discussing-taiwan-arms-sales-with-china-and-creates-concerns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/476601\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump says he is discussing Taiwan arms sales with China and creates concerns"},"content":{"rendered":"

U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s comment that he is discussing potential arms sales to Taiwan<\/a> with Chinese President Xi Jinping is raising concerns in Taipei as the island democracy relies on U.S. backing in the face of China<\/a> \u2019s territorial claims.<\/p>\n

On Monday, Trump told journalists he is discussing the potential sales with the Chinese leader, an unexpected statement that experts say might violate decades-old foreign policy principles defining the United States\u2019 relationship with self-ruled Taiwan.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m talking to him about it. We had a good conversation, and we\u2019ll make a determination pretty soon,\u201d Trump said when asked about Xi\u2019s opposition to the arms sales. He added he has \u201ca very good relationship with President Xi.\u201d<\/p>\n

His comments have stirred a debate among some experts and politicians about whether this signals a potential change in U.S. policy toward Taiwan ahead of Trump\u2019s planned visit to China in April. Here is some context:<\/p>\n

A \u2018dangerous precedent\u2019?<\/p>\n

Trump consulting Xi about arms sales to Taiwan may violate the so-called Six Assurances, a set of non-binding U.S. policy principles formulated in 1982 under President Ronald Reagan that have helped to guide the U.S. relationship with Taipei, said William Yang, a senior Northeast Asia analyst for the International Crisis Group.<\/p>\n

The second of the Six Assurances states that the U.S. \u201cdid not agree to consult with the People\u2019s Republic of China on arms sales to Taiwan.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat basically has been executed by several U.S. presidents after Ronald Reagan to justify and continue the arms sales to Taiwan without actually discussing the topic with China over the past few decades,\u201d Yang said.<\/p>\n

He added that Trump may be creating a \u201cdangerous precedent\u201d allowing for Beijing to make demands regarding U.S. arms sales to Taiwan.<\/p>\n

Taiwan\u2019s government, which is observing a weeklong Lunar New Year holiday, has not reacted to Trump\u2019s statements.<\/p>\n

China has condemned record U.S. arms sales to Taiwan<\/p>\n

The tensions are rooted in China\u2019s claims over Taiwan<\/a>, which China says needs to be annexed, by force if necessary. Beijing prohibits any country it has diplomatic relations with from having formal ties with Taipei and regularly sends warships and military aircraft near the island.<\/p>\n

Despite not having official ties with Taiwan, the U.S. is the island\u2019s biggest informal backer and arms supplier. It is obligated by domestic law to provide Taiwan with sufficient hardware to deter any armed attack from the mainland.<\/p>\n

In December, the Trump administration announced a record-breaking arms sales package to Taiwan<\/a> worth more than $11 billion.<\/p>\n

China bristled at the deal, and in a phone conversation with Trump earlier this month, Xi warned that \u201cthe U.S. must handle the issue of arms sales to Taiwan with prudence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Xi also stressed that \u201cthe Taiwan question is the most important issue in China-U.S. relations,\u201d according to a readout of their call published by the Chinese foreign ministry.<\/p>\n

Three pillars of U.S.-Taiwan relations<\/p>\n

In the absence of formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan, U.S. policies toward the self-ruled island are based on three pillars, said Lev Nachman, a political science professor at National Taiwan University.<\/p>\n

The first pillar, and the only one that\u2019s been formalized into law, is the Taiwan Relations Act. It was passed by Congress in 1979, the year the U.S. established formal diplomatic relations with China and severed ties with Taiwan. The act binds the U.S. to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself while regarding all threats to the island as a security concern.<\/p>\n

Secondly, the Three Communiques are three sets of statements by the U.S. and Chinese governments in the 1970s and 1980s that cover a variety of topics including Taiwan. Through the communiques, the U.S. acknowledges that there is only one China without recognizing Beijing\u2019s sovereignty over Taiwan. The Three Communiques form the basis of U.S. strategic ambiguity on Taiwan, leaving the U.S. with room to support the island while not breaking its diplomatic agreements with China.<\/p>\n

Finally, the Six Assurances were formulated as a means to reassure Taiwan of continued U.S. support, and they are believed to have been upheld by all U.S. presidents since Reagan.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s comments give the impression that China may have a say in the quantity of arms sales to Taiwan, said Hoo Tiang Boon, an associate professor of international relations at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if eventually the U.S. will approve whatever arms sales packages to Taiwan, it is a disturbing development, particularly from the perspective of Taiwan because it sounds like it would be an issue that would be bargained away,\u201d Hoo said.<\/p>\n

Taiwan to feature prominently in Trump\u2019s China visit<\/p>\n

Trump is set to make his first trip to China<\/a> in his current term in April, and Taiwan likely will feature prominently during his meetings with Xi, along with issues such as trade and access to advanced technologies.<\/p>\n

Uncertainty about whether Trump will address the issue of arms sales to Taiwan during his visit is set to amplify skepticism on the island about whether the U.S. would intervene in a potential Chinese attack, Yang said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis further surge of skepticism, anxiety about the United States within Taiwan is exactly what China would be aiming for,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The island\u2019s independence-leaning government led by President Lai Ching-te is already having a hard time securing payment for the existing U.S. arms sales packages, with the budget stalled in parliament.<\/p>\n

Taiwan\u2019s opposition lawmakers said Monday they would review a $40 billion special defense budget once they reconvene after the holiday on Feb. 23.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

This version corrects Trump\u2019s quote to \u201cI\u2019m talking to him about it. We had a good conversation\u201d from the previous versions that incorrectly quoted him as saying \u201cI\u2019ve talked to him about it, made a good conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP journalist Huizhong Wu in Bangkok contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s comment that he is discussing potential arms sales to Taiwan with Chinese President Xi…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":476602,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,1204,550,144,3327,8649,1930,12,793,962,3,111,17570,3998,188904,21,792,19,22,20,25,24,220522,965,6132],"class_list":{"0":"post-476601","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-asia-pacific","10":"tag-beijing","11":"tag-china","12":"tag-china-government","13":"tag-democracy","14":"tag-diplomacy","15":"tag-donald-trump","16":"tag-general-news","17":"tag-government-policy","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-politics","20":"tag-ronald-reagan","21":"tag-taiwan","22":"tag-taiwan-government","23":"tag-united-states","24":"tag-united-states-government","25":"tag-united-states-of-america","26":"tag-unitedstates","27":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","28":"tag-us","29":"tag-usa","30":"tag-william-yang","31":"tag-world-news","32":"tag-xi-jinping"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=476601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/476602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=476601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=476601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=476601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}