The administration of President Donald Trump on Wednesday approved what was possibly the largest U.S. arms sale to Taiwan, in a sign that the relative thaw in U.S.-China relations had not impacted Washington’s support for the self-ruled island’s security.
The $11.1 billion weapons package includes self-propelled howitzers, precision rocket launchers, guided-missile systems, and unmanned aerial vehicles—asymmetric capabilities that would be critical in boosting Taiwan’s coastal defenses in the event of a Chinese invasion.
China claims Taiwan as its territory, although Beijing’s Communist Party-led government has never ruled there. Chinese President Xi Jinping has called unification between the two sides inevitable, and top U.S. defense officials believe he has ordered the People’s Liberation Army to be capable of moving against Taiwan by 2027.
China’s threats and increasingly large-scale military exercises have driven Taipei to step up weapons orders from Washington, which conducts arms sales under the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979.
The deal comes just three months after Trump reportedly declined to greenlight a $400 million weapons package to Taiwan. At the time, observers speculated it was a calculated move to sweeten the pot for a trade deal with China.
This is a breaking news story. Updates to follow.
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