Trump Might Sell Out Taiwan—Here’s How to Prevent It

While US President Donald Trump runs the chaotic Ukraine diplomacy, which is characterized by unwillingness to stand in front of the aggressor or to defend the principles of sovereignty and regional integrity, the Europeans are not the only ones who feel tension. In fact, if anyone should be concerned about his place in a world of increased turmoil, as American security guarantees no longer seem solid as before, they are 23 million people from Taiwan.

Of course, Taiwan has not been recognized as a country by most others, and any steps he takes towards this end can lead to an invasion of her Chinese neighbor. Even without this worst scenario, China has increased the political, diplomatic and military pressure unabated on Taiwan with the aim of ultimately unifying. Beijing is conducting an active propaganda campaign and is subject to what many consider to be the largest military accumulation in history, in part to develop the ability to seize Taiwan.

While US President Donald Trump runs the chaotic Ukraine diplomacy, which is characterized by unwillingness to stand in front of the aggressor or to defend the principles of sovereignty and regional integrity, the Europeans are not the only ones who feel tension. In fact, if anyone should be concerned about his place in a world of increased turmoil, as American security guarantees no longer seem solid as before, they are 23 million people from Taiwan.

Of course, Taiwan has not been recognized as a country by most others, and any steps he takes towards this end can lead to an invasion of her Chinese neighbor. Even without this worst scenario, China has increased the political, diplomatic and military pressure unabated on Taiwan with the aim of ultimately unifying. Beijing is conducting an active propaganda campaign and is subject to what many consider to be the largest military accumulation in history, in part to develop the ability to seize Taiwan.

Over the past few years, Beijing has normalized the military tactics that have once existed in the Taiwan Strait, with the air and sea crossings of the medium line more than ever, the marine exercises for Twitter operations, additional life training, and unprecedented ballistic missile tests directly over the island. Few expects Chinese President Xi Jinping will launch an unjustified invasion of the island any time soon. But a little doubt that he will do this if he feels that Taiwan is declining or if he sees an opportunity to do this without excessive costs, which may become the case if it comes to doubt about the American commitment to support the Taiwan defense.

Taiwan’s growing internal policy is increasingly at risk. The pressure is uncompromising from Beijing, the divisions between the main political parties in Taiwan, with the use of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to provide its case for more assurances of sovereignty, while the Kuomintang (KMT) see the need to involve Beijing. The speech by both sides has become increasingly – the DPP chair and the Taiwanese President William Lay recently about the “impurities” that come out of the political system in Taiwan, while the President of KMT Eric Zhu compared some of the actions of Lay to Nazi Germany. An attempt by DPP failed to remember 24 km of legislators last month, but it was another sign of the parties’ inability to work together.

All of these developments are concerned, but to a large extent the largest modern factors raises questions about the future of Taiwan are the ghost of abandonment by the Trump administration. During his first term, Trump was a strong supporter of Taiwan. His phone call after the elections in December 2016 with the then president of Taiwan, Tsai Eng Win, was unprecedented-the first direct contact between an American president or the elected president and the leader of Taiwan since Washington confessed to the Republic of China in 1979. He has made it clear more higher diplomatic contacts from the previous presidency, and its signature. The secrecy has been lifted from the previous US assurances that the United States will stand by Taiwan. He also kept the Taiwan issue outside the discussions with China.

But the Taiwanese began to notice that the second Trump administration is different, and not only because of the relative absence of China or senior officials familiar with Taiwan. The main concern is that Trump – desperate for the summit and trade agreement with XI – will be ready to sell Taiwan to get it. In the past few weeks alone, Trump rejected a routine request usually from the President of Taiwan to crossing the United States, and he caused vetoes on a planned visit by the Minister of Defense in Taiwan, who agreed to sell semiconductors to China that was previously subject to export controls, and imposed higher definitions on Taiwan from other major trade companies. (Taiwan’s comprehensive tariff of 20 percent was less than the hypothesis at first 32 percent, but more than 15 percent of the European Union, Japan and South Korea).

Fear in Taipei is that if Trump is ready to do all this only to get a top with something, he may be ready to accommodate Beijing – for example, by reducing defense sales to Taiwan and officially opposed to Taiwan’s independence – one successful.

Unlike former President Joe Biden, and all his ancestors, Trump does not simply adhere to the American role in maintaining global security or the idea that the United States should defend its democratic partners. It is very easy to imagine that it announces that Taiwan has dealt with the United States very badly, has stolen the semiconductor industry, only spends a little defense, and that Americans should not risk the war thousands of miles away. According to journalist Josh Rogin, Trump once said, “Taiwan is like two feet from China … We are 8,000 miles away. If invaded, there is nothing ridiculous we can do about it.” The Alaska summit last Friday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, as Trump again seemed to stand with the authoritarian leader of a great power and not with a democratic leader of a smaller one, just a Tayei strengthening.

The Trump administration’s second policies are the losses in public opinion in Taiwan. This spring polls found that 40.5 percent of respondents had a negative vision of the United States, an increase of about 24 percent in July 2024, and that approximately 60 percent do not consider the United States a trustworthy ally, an increase of approximately 10 percentage points from the previous year. About 40 percent of Taiwanese believe that the American commitment to defending Taiwan will decrease during the second period of Trump.

Taiwan options in facing this perfect storm of limited challenges – there is no alternative to supporting the United States. But it has cards to play.

One of them is an increase in defense spending, and Lai has pledged to do, for more than 3 percent of GDP – or more if new definitions of NATO are used for defensive spending that include infrastructure. Currently, the necessary proposals to do so are stuck in the Taiwan parliament, where the parties quarrel about how to spend additional money, but all – including the KMT opposition – is committed to doing so in principle. Other billions can be used in new defensive spending in a special budget to gain additional means of asymmetric war, including drones and immovable weapons platforms, as well as to store ammunition, enhance defense facilities, expand military service and civil defense training. This will not only help to make Taiwan safer and self-reliance-which is urgent and necessary-but will deprive Trump of the pretext of abandoning it on the land of participation in the burden.

Taiwan can also help ensure US support continues with increased investment in the United States, especially by TSMC, the best chip maker in the world, responsible for 8 percent of the island’s gross domestic product. Indeed, TSMC has declared obligations to spend about $ 165 billion in the United States, including $ 65 billion in Arizona alone, to expand the production of semiconductors and technology infrastructure (such as packaging facilities and research and development centers) that are compatible with them. Delivering and expanding such obligations would have a long way to remind all Americans of the value of Taiwan as a close economic and technological partner and the United States in helping to maintain safe and safe Taiwan.

Finally, the Taiwan leadership is supposed to take the independence speech line or other measures that can cause revenge by Beijing and highlighting the risks of the United States for its commitment to Taiwan. Although Lay’s legitimate desire to confirm the independence of Taiwan may be, it is now not the time to test the long -term virtual question about whether the United States will go to war to defend Taiwan.

Trump’s reliability and the inability to predict make us all our partners more tense. But the release of the relationship between the United States, Taiwan-called it alone a sale from Taiwan, which may tempt China to move against it-will have catastrophic repercussions on the entire world. Taipei must do everything in his power to avoid it.