The election of Donald Trump as US president last month left many people in Taiwan and international foreign policy analysts wondering what the impact would be for the nation, especially considering Trump’s comments on the campaign trail that Taiwan stole the US’ chip business and likening the US’ security support to an insurance provider, saying Taiwan should pay the US more for “protection.”
Such rhetoric framed the US-Taiwan relationship as being built not on shared values, such as democracy and human rights, or with a shared interest in upholding the liberal international order, but on a purely transactional basis, which would be a significant deviation from previous US administrations, especially that of US President Joe Biden.
However, such fears have been shown to be misplaced following Trump’s national security nominations, including US Senator Marco Rubio to be his secretary of state, and US Representative Michael Waltz to be his national security adviser. Both have been strong supporters of Taiwan, sponsoring pro-Taiwan legislation in the US Congress, and advocating that the US focus on regional stability in Asia to check Beijing’s revisionist ambitions.
This does not mean that Taiwan should rest on its laurels. The opposite is the case. Now is the time for the nation to do more on defense. It was encouraging that following Trump’s election, Taiwanese officials contacted Trump’s team about procuring up to US$15 billion in military hardware.
In the On Taiwan column for the Taipei Times on Monday — “Peace Through Strength is Taiwan’s Ticket to Stronger Relations with US” — Ryan Hass wrote that Trump and his advisers believe the Biden administration projected weakness to the US’ adversaries, which emboldened Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine, Iran and its proxies to attack Israel, and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to push the envelope around Taiwan. Trump’s team wants to “reverse these trends by projecting strength and maintaining unpredictability.”
Hass wrote that one way for Taiwan to deepen cooperation with the US is to position itself as a contributor to Trump’s “peace through strength” vision, which has become the catchphrase of his project to renew US power. “The more both sides lean into this framing, the greater the potential for progress in advancing US-Taiwan relations in the years to come,” he wrote.
Here, there is much low-hanging fruit. Purchasing more arms from the US would help boost US manufacturing and be well received by Trump and his team. The nation could also integrate such rhetoric into its international communications, bolstering the “peace through strength” narrative. Taiwan is also well-placed to be a strong partner for the high-tech industrialization of the US.
More challenging for President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration is raising defense spending as a percentage of GDP, given that his Democratic Progressive Party does not have a majority in the legislature, and the opposition parties have shown themselves to be so implacably hostile to helping Lai’s administration be a success, even if that means damaging the national interest.
However, the perception that Taiwan spends too little on defense is likely to grow in salience over the course of the next US administration if “peace through strength” is the lodestar. Taiwan is projected to spend 2.5 percent of GDP on defense next year. By comparison, Poland, a NATO member, is to spend 4.7 percent, and other small nations Singapore and Israel regularly spend 3 and nearly 6 percent respectively. South Korea, a US treaty ally with 28,500 US troops stationed in the country, is to spend 2.8 percent. Therefore, more urgency is needed in the national conversation to ensure the nation would meet its “peace through strength” commitments.
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