Trump says he will discuss Taiwan arms sales during summit with China’s Xi

Taiwanese soldiers taking part in drills during the annual Han Kuang Exercise on the Penghu Islands in July 2024. Photo by Handout/Taiwan Military News Agency/AFP via Getty Images

Article content

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 island.

Article content

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

Article content

Article content

Article content

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

Article content

Article content

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.

Article content

The issue has emerged as a point of tension with Beijing, which has repeatedly warned Washington about the sales. It’s unclear if Trump plans to discuss the sales themselves — something he’s said previously — or just Xi’s opposition to them. 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.”

Article content

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

Article content

Article content

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.

Article content

Article content

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.

Article content

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.

Article content

“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.”