Trump says he will discuss Taiwan arms sales at Xi summit

President Donald Trump said he will discuss U.S. arms sales to Taiwan with Chinese leader Xi Jinping at a meeting this week, a move that risks undermining America’s longstanding support for the self-ruled island claimed by Beijing.

Ahead of his visit to China for the highly anticipated leaders’ summit, Trump was asked on Monday if he would talk about weapons shipments to Taipei with Xi.

“I’m going to have that discussion,” Trump said. “President Xi would like us not to. And I’ll have that discussion.”

As part of former President Ronald Reagan’s so-called Six Assurances to Taipei in 1982, the U.S. said it had not agreed to any prior consultation with Beijing on arms sales to Taiwan. Any move by Trump to negotiate the transfers directly with Xi — something he has previously floated — would trample on that diplomatic tradition.

Arms sales to Taiwan have emerged as a point of tension with Beijing, with Xi warning Trump to handle the issue with “utmost caution” in a February phone call. China’s Foreign Ministry restated the country’s opposition to such weapon supplies at a regular press briefing on Tuesday.

It’s unclear if Trump plans to discuss the sales themselves — something he’s said previously — or just Xi’s objection. The U.S. president said he didn’t plan to make the issue a primary focus of the conversation, telling reporters, “you’ll bring up Taiwan, I think, more than I would.”

Taiwanese officials are monitoring the upcoming talks but have largely downplayed Trump’s remarks. One of the officials, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, said Taiwan assesses that China also raised the issue of arms sales during meetings with former presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama.

In a briefing on Tuesday, a spokesperson for Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry, Hsiao Kuang-wei, said he welcomed recent remarks by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has twice reiterated in recent weeks that the U.S. policy toward Taiwan remains unchanged.

Still, Trump’s comments could ruffle feathers in Congress. Earlier, a bipartisan group of senators urged the president to advance a $14 billion arms package for Taiwan and signal to Xi this week that U.S. support for the self-governing island is non-negotiable.

The letter from eight senators, dated May 8 and released Monday, stressed the arms purchase approved by Congress in January 2025 is “vital to our own national interests.” Foreign military sales typically take years to go from approval to delivery of weapons.

The lawmakers’ push, which includes a plea for Trump to make clear that “America’s support for Taiwan is inviolable,” highlighted a key disagreement between the U.S. and China.

While Taiwan is expected to be on the agenda at the Trump-Xi summit, no changes in U.S. policy toward the democratic island are expected, a U.S. official said Sunday. A senior Taiwanese official expressed concern last month that Taiwan would be put “on the menu” of the talks between Trump and Xi.

“Xi will reinforce China’s opposition to Taiwan arms sales, maybe even tie it to critical-minerals leverage, and that could have a chilling effect on future arms sales,” said Jennifer Welch, Chief Geoeconomics Analyst at Bloomberg Economics in Washington. “If Trump gets the impression — or direct message from Xi — that China hates those sales so much that it may once again put critical minerals at risk, that could lead to further delays.”

China considers Taiwan part of its territory and has vowed to claim it someday, despite never having controlled it. Officials in Taiwan maintain the island’s de facto independence and reiterate that it has never been governed by Beijing.

Last week, Taiwan passed a $25 billion special defense budget despite what the U.S. lawmakers called “extraordinary and sustained pressure from Beijing.” The U.S. lawmakers praised the Taiwanese budget as a sign of a commitment to self-defense, as the Trump administration calls for partners and allies to take a greater stake in their own defense.

“The vast majority of this new budget will fund U.S.-provided defensive arms pending notification to Congress, including counter-drone assets, an integrated battle command system and medium-range munitions,” the lawmakers wrote.

By contrast, the senators said a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would have wide-ranging impacts and that “American families would suffer from severe and long-term inflation, supply chain disruptions that would destroy manufacturing jobs at home and steep hikes in the cost of living.” The U.S. also would lose a key partner and Beijing would become the dominant power in the region, they wrote.

On Monday, Trump likened a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan to Russia’s war on Ukraine, which he has repeatedly argued wouldn’t have happened if he had been president.

“If you have the right president, I don’t think it’ll happen,” Trump said of Taiwan. “I think we’ll be fine.”

The letter was signed by Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and fellow Democrats Chris Coons of Delaware, Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, Andy Kim of New Jersey, Jacky Rosen of Nevada and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan.

Two Republican senators — Thom Tillis of North Carolina and John Curtis of Utah — also signed the letter. Both have pushed back against the White House on other issues, with Tillis pressing the administration on its dealings with the Federal Reserve, and Curtis urging the administration to seek congressional approval for its war on Iran.

Many of the lawmakers had recently visited Taiwan and are aware of the risk of a Chinese invasion and the importance of U.S. support, they wrote.

----------

—With assistance from Megan Scully and Lucille Liu.

___