Somehow, US intelligence identified “the Houthis’ top missile guy” and pinpointed his exact location. At 1348 hours (Washington time), March 15, President Trump’s national security advisor Mike Waltz texted, “positive ID of him walking into his girlfriend’s building.” The unsuspecting Romeo entered. High above, the drone monitoring the building registered a flash. When the smoke cleared, Mr. Waltz texted, “…And it’s now collapsed.” RIP. The star-crossed “top missile guy” had been target number one in the now uproarious US Navy bombing campaign on that Sunday against the Yemeni rebels who have been holding the Red Sea hostage since October 19, 2023.
Waltz’s string of minute-by-minute texts shared among the most senior national security officials in the US government were remarkable for their combat immediacy ... and for other sensational reasons. But it was most remarkable for its reflection of the unvarnished disdain at the top of the Trump administration for America’s European allies.
Clearing the Red Sea of the Houthi threat, and reopening its shipping lanes, costs money. Mr. Waltz said “DoD and State” would “compile the cost” and “levy” them on the Europeans. Vice President JD Vance commented, “I just hate bailing Europe out again,” to which Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth commented “VP: I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It’s PATHETIC.”
What does this have to do with Taiwan? Nothing, except that the new Trump Administration’s view of its Pacific allies is serious, urgent, and friendly. In short, the exact opposite of its attitude toward Europe.
I ended my last column on December 16 with a quotation from President Donald J. Trump: “Other presidents just didn’t think it was appropriate to talk about money. That’s all I know how to talk about.” President Trump said this privately to his erstwhile national security advisor John Bolton, and Bolton, in his memoir, seemed to think it crass.
I don’t. I think it is eminently sensible. “Money” — economic value — is a perfectly reasonable denomination of foreign policy cost/benefit analyses. I strongly believe that had previous presidents valued Taiwan for its intrinsic worth rather than disdaining Taiwan solely as a net-negative aggravation in US-China relations, we could have avoided the constant crises in the Taiwan Strait of the past thirty years. I remember back before Mr. Trump’s first term, that my former colleagues in the State Department professed horror at the President-elect’s “transactional” attitude toward Taiwan. My analysis was just the opposite: Trump actually values Taiwan for Taiwan! The President’s “transactional” approach, in fact, places Taiwan on a higher strategic tier than any previous administration has.
Taiwan-US defense trade surpassed US$18 billion in the first Trump term alone. But what does Donald Trump care for money? The first F-16 Block 70 fighters, which Trump approved in 2019, are now rolling off Lockheed Martin’s South Carolina production lines for ground testing and delivery. What does Taiwan care for jet fighters?
As China’s massive and menacing military exercises around Taiwan become commonplace, there is a danger that decision-makers in both Washington and Taipei might begin to regard them as part of the landscape. But last week’s Pacific travels of secretary Hegseth convince me Trump II is truly alarmed by China’s behavior.
Hegseth’s inaugural Western Pacific progress through Guam, the Philippines and Japan underscores how seriously the new administration takes the China threat. Strategic forces in Guam are dispersed; bomber squadrons rotated; nuclear attack submarines on high alert; “littoral regiments” of US Marines in the region are in continual hide-and-seek deployment across the Western Pacific. China is the focus. Hegseth told troops in Guam last week, “we are not seeking a war with communist China, but it is our job to ensure that we are ready.” In the Philippines, the defense secretary coordinated with Filipino allies on “Typhon” medium range missile operations. Typhon systems are being deployed explicitly to counter Beijing’s massive buildup of intermediate- and long-range missiles in the Pacific. I, for one, am reassured that Typhon’s presence (according to The Wall Street Journal) is “enraging China.”
Then, in Japan, the secretary announced that US Forces Japan headquarters are being upgraded from a joint US-Japan administrative liaison to a full combatant “joint-force command.” In Tokyo on March 30, Hegseth proclaimed America was committed to a “ready, robust and credible deterrence” across the US Indo-Pacific Command “including across the Taiwan Strait.” The US, Hegseth insisted, would “build an alliance so robust that both the reality and the perception of deterrence are real and ongoing, so that the communist Chinese don’t take the aggressive actions that some have contemplated they will.”
The rhetoric is quite a contrast with the “cost-compiling” of the Red Sea operation, no?
But defending Taiwan is no longer a mere military challenge for the President. It is measured on an economic axis. Now in April 2025, I count fifteen events on the White House homepage which are at least partially devoted to Taiwan, specifically Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s foundry complex in Arizona.
On March 3, President Trump convened a round of meetings in the Oval Office with TSMC’s chief C.C. Wei (魏哲家), Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and others. In the press availability afterwards, President Trump agreed that “the products that TSMC makes are literally the most important products in the world.” The White House posted five separate articles and features on that event alone.
The next day, in his first joint address to Congress on March 4 this year, the President railed against China’s predatory trading practices and industrial policies no fewer than six times. But one of his bigger applause lines was, “…And just yesterday, Taiwan Semiconductor — the biggest in the world, most powerful in the world, has a tremendous amount — 97 percent of the market, announced a $165 billion investment to build the most powerful chips on Earth right here in the USA. (Applause.)…” TSMC was the only non-American investor mentioned by the President in his one hour and 39-minute address.
So enthusiastic was the President that a week later, he rounded the TSMC investment up to “$200 billion” during his press gaggle on Air Force One. The President characteristically hyperbolizes for emphasis, so his canonization of the TSMC partnership among the great accomplishments of his “First Hundred Days” is a reliable indicator of his commitment to Taiwan.
There is other financial news that I may say with confidence caught the President’s eye. The Financial Times reported on January 31 that Taiwan has “stealthily” become the fifth-largest foreign creditor in the world with international investments of US$1.7 trillion.
That’s “trillion,” with a “tr”. It now emerges that two-thirds of Taiwan’s life insurance industry assets are predominantly denominated in US dollars, while its liabilities are 80 per cent denominated in New Taiwan dollars. Added to this, as the US president is well aware, Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves are well over a half-trillion dollars. That is huge!
There is no doubt that the Trump administration grasps that Taiwan holds a key position in global financial markets as one of the top five holders of US dollar-denominated assets.
In other forums, I have recommended that the US Congress and its specialized commissions examine Taiwan’s pivotal role in international markets and inquire whether existing US laws and regulations are adequate to the task of defending Taiwan as well as protecting Taiwan’s assets from Chinese confiscation.
For example, in what circumstances might the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 (sections 3303(b)(3) (A) and (B)) be inadequate to secure US interests with respect to “the governing authorities” on Taiwan’s “rights or obligations (including but not limited to those involving contracts, debts, or property interests of any kind)” physically in, or under the jurisdiction of, the United States? How might US law have viewed Ukraine’s government, official, corporate or private assets outside Ukraine had Russia been successful in occupying the country in its 2022 invasion and declaring Ukraine to be Russia’s sovereign territory?
When dealing with assets and interests valued in the trillions of dollars it is not a mere exercise in “low-probability, high-impact” risk calculation. For Taiwan it is life and death; for the United States, it is close enough to the definition of an “existential event” that would “concentrate the mind wonderfully.” Both the Trump administration and Congress have their unique responsibilities in securing America’s economic and financial stability and I trust detailed studies and exhaustive table-top simulations have long been under way to prepare decision-makers for these eventualities.
But, what does President Donald J. Trump care for money?
John J. Tkacik, Jr. is a retired US foreign service officer who has served in Taipei and Beijing and is now director of the Future Asia Project at the International Assessment and Strategy Center. He is also on the Advisory Board of the Global Taiwan
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