Trump remains stubbornly wrong on Taiwan

While America’s Republican Party talks toughness on China and support for Taiwan, its presidential candidate has just described with more clarity than ever his personal inclination to let China conquer Taiwan. Although a reputation for having a “transactional” view of foreign policy precedes him, Trump’s recent comments about Taiwan are jarring.

Current President Joe Biden strained the US policy of “strategic ambiguity” by publicly saying four times that he would send American forces to help defend Taiwan in the event of a PRC attack. Trump has strained that policy in the opposite direction. Despite not saying he wouldn’t send the US military to help Taiwan, Trump told us why he thought US intervention would be a bad idea. 

David P. Goldman wrote in Asia Times on July 18 thatTrump simply “spoke common sense.”  Hardly. 

There are five important things wrong with what Trump said. 

First, he said “Taiwan should pay us for defense,” adding that “they’re immensely wealthy.”  He compared the US role to that of an “insurance company.”

Trump seems to be misapplying to Taiwan the same criticism that he makes of Japan and South Korea. The USA is bound by treaties to defend the latter two, and Trump has long said they are free-riders that should pay all of the cost of hosting US bases plus an additional premium.

But Taiwan isn’t a free-rider. Taipei pays for the weapons it buys from the USA. Taiwan is not a US treaty ally, does not host US bases and does not even have a firm commitment that US forces would intervene when needed. The notion that Taiwan should pay the United States for a non-commitment is absurd. No sane person would buy a policy like that from an actual insurance company.

The second wrong idea is that Taiwan “took” America’s semiconductor manufacturing business. Asked if he would go to war with China to defend Taiwan, the first point Trump made was “They did take about 100 percent of our chip business.”

This was not a one-off. In an August 2023 interview, Trump’s first response to the same question was “Taiwan did take all of our chip business.” When that interviewer asked about the consequences of China capturing Taiwan’s semiconductor fabs, Trump agreed that would be bad. “But,” he said, “remember this: Taiwan took — smart, brilliant — they took our business away. We should have stopped them.”

In Trump’s mind, it seems, the most prominent consideration in whether or not to defend Taiwan against a Chinese military attack is his sense that Taiwan screwed over US businesses in an important industrial sector. But it would be more accurate to say that American CEOs decided to seek higher profits by offshoring production to Taiwan’s TSMC, which had developed an intelligent business model and employed highly skilled engineers who were willing to work long hours for relatively modest salaries.

Taiwan won its dominance of chip manufacturing by competing well in a free market.  This is not a legitimate reason to abandon Taiwan to forcible PRC takeover.

Third, Trump’s statements indicate a lack of appreciation for the longer-term and less tangible benefits the US gains from supporting Taiwan even absent the payment of insurance premiums. Under a democratic government that respects universal human rights and international law, Taiwan is an inspiring example of political liberalization and a beacon of hope for unfree societies, particularly mainland China.

Taiwan anchors the first island chain, which would create choke points impeding China’s access to the western Pacific Ocean in a time of war. Unlike the PRC government, Taiwan is transparent about outbreaks of infectious disease, which unfortunately are inevitable in the future, and is a key part of an effective global health early-warning system.   

On the other hand, an unfriendly government in Taiwan would create extreme anxiety in Japan that its maritime supply lines and southwestern territories were under threat. And US abandonment of Taiwan to involuntary unification would signal to the Asia-Pacific region a dramatic reduction, if not the end, of US leadership in the region. Washington would thereby cede its power to shape the region in ways favorable not only to US security, but to American economic interests.

Fourth, Trump implied that the PRC could easily subdue Taiwan by force because China is close to Taiwan while the United States is “9,500 miles away.” (Taiwan is actually 6,700 miles from the US west coast and 7,950 miles from the US east coast.)

“They could just bombard it,” he said.  “They can literally just send shells.” Assuming Trump meant “missiles,” it’s true that the PLA could pepper important government buildings and military infrastructure with explosions. Missile strikes, however, don’t win a war if the Taipei government does not choose to surrender. 

It is unnecessary and counterproductive for an American president to say he thinks it would be too hard for the US military to prevent China from annexing Taiwan by force. Even with its advantages, capturing Taiwan would be highly risky and immensely difficult for the PRC, and the economic turmoil caused by the war could endanger the Chinese Communist Party’s control of China.

In a well-designed series of Taiwan Strait war games managed by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in 2023, China failed to seize Taiwan in most iterations. Yet Trump’s defeatist statements could make war more likely if PRC observers assessed that Trump intended to let the Chinese as well as the Russians “do whatever the hell they want.”

Finally, Trump said the reason the PRC doesn’t attempt to violently annex Taiwan is “because they don’t want to lose all those chip plants.” To Trump, Taiwan means semiconductors.

But to the PRC leadership, Taiwan has profound historical and political significance. It is the symbol of the incompleteness of the Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War and the missing piece required for Xi’s “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.”

Taiwan’s semiconductor factories would have little if any impact on a decision by Beijing to attack, which would rather depend on the PRC government judging that the possibility of Taiwan peacefully uniting with the PRC had permanently closed. This has been the situation since before TSMC was founded.

Some additional context makes Trump’s comments more ominous. Trump reportedly thinks China is far more important than Taiwan is. John Bolton, who served as national security advisor in the Trump Administration, wrote that “One of Trump’s favorite comparisons was to point to the tip of one of his Sharpies and say,`This is Taiwan,’ then point to the historic [and large] Resolute Desk in the Oval Office and say,`This is China.’”

Trump admires Xi Jinping.  Even after the US-China acrimony during the pandemic, Trump says Xi is “smart, brilliant” and “I like President Xi a lot.” Trump very much wants an economic agreement that would reduce China’s trade deficit with the US, something Trump has complained about repeatedly. The much-hyped “Phase One” bilateral trade deal of 2019 was an unsuccessful attempt.

Perhaps Trump’s recent statements are just some tough love, a tactic to scare Taiwan into increasing its defense spending.  But it is not a stretch to imagine that Trump is thinking about trying for another mega-deal with his pal Xi, using Taiwan as a bargaining chip. If so, it would make sense for Trump to psychologically prepare his followers for a US sellout of Taiwan by sending out messages that Taiwan is unworthy and indefensible.

Asia affairs analyst Grant Newsham, who strongly supports the US preparing to defend Taiwan in the event of war with China, said of Trump’s comments, “The language is a little odd … but Mr. Trump will have some good advisors around him. He’ll get this right.”

Consider, however, that when he was president, Trump sat through four years of meetings with senior officials – such as Mike Pompeo, Elbridge Colby, Matt Pottinger, Mark Esper and Robert C. O’Brien – who strongly supported defending Taiwan. They seem to have influenced him little on this issue.

Another Trump term would probably feature a similar disconnect between the commander-in-chief and his top foreign policy advisors. Project 2025, the blueprint for a second Trump Administration written by a Trump-aligned think tank, says “US defense planning should focus on China and, in particular, the effective denial defense of Taiwan.” But it is the US president, not the advisors, who decides whether or not to send US forces into a foreign conflict.

Denny Roy is a senior felllow at the East-West Center in Honolulu.