Why Trump Won’t Sacrifice Taiwan – Analysis
(FPRI) — The basic contours of President Donald Trump’s China policy and its implications for Taiwan remain uncertain. Many express concern Trump will sacrifice Taiwan for a grand bargain with Beijing. Rear Admiral Mike Studeman (Ret.), for example, suggests that the possibility of Taiwan being traded as “a huge blue chip” in a grand economic bargain cannot be dismissed. Such concerns overlook the key role elite and popular opinion plays in constraining President Trump’s options.
All presidents must secure domestic ratification for international agreements as part of a “two-level game,” and Trump is no exception. Historical and contemporary evidence illustrates that Trump’s maneuvering room for innovative policy on Taiwan is more limited than many assume.
Congressional Support for Taiwan
The Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) does not bind the United States to take any particular action in the event of Chinese aggression, only holding that such acts would be treated with “grave concern.” This means that, from a legal perspective, the American response ultimately depends on the president’s discretion.
Yet observers should not mistake the US Congress’ lack of legal authority for lack of influence. As the Third and Fourth Taiwan Strait Crises reveal, Donald Trump would not be the first US president to have their preference for US-China stability undermined by staunch congressional support for Taiwan.
The Third Taiwan Strait Crisis makes this especially clear. As Taiwan prepared for its first democratic presidential election in 1996, presidential candidate and incumbent Lee Teng-hui lobbied intensively for a US visa to speak at Cornell University, his alma mater. Speaking at Cornell would elevate Taiwan’s international standing while enhancing Lee’s prospects in the upcoming election. President Bill Clinton and his advisors, however, opposed the visit. Secretary of State Warren Christopher told his Chinese counterpart no visa would be issued, and in March 1995 the US State Department publicly announced this decision.
Clinton’s decision received immediate pushback from Congress. Resolutions urging President Clinton to grant Lee’s visa passed 97 to 1 in the US Senate and 396 to 0 in the House. As a result, Clinton “gave in to intense pressure.” Lee’s subsequent Cornell speech marked a major milestone for Taiwan on the international stage, even as it also triggered an eight-month cross-strait crisis that included nuclear escalation risks.
More recently, the Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis has again highlighted congressional prerogatives overruling presidential preferences. While President Joseph Biden warned against the trip, in August 2022 Nancy Pelosi became the first Speaker of the House to visit Taiwan since Newt Gingrich in 1997. The normally fractious Congress united behind Pelosi. Michael McCaul, the senior Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, stated, “I don’t always agree with her, but on this one I applaud it.” Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell likewise stated, “I have no criticism of the speaker trying to make this trip.”
Adamant bipartisan support for Taiwan has a long history. The TRA itself is an expression of congressional disapproval of the way Taiwan was seemingly sacrificed to normalize relations with China. As Richard Bush put it, the TRA was passed because congressional members “believed that President [Jimmy] Carter struck a bad bargain . . . by giving into Chinese demands that he terminate diplomatic relations with Taiwan and end[ing] the mutual defense treaty.” Congress today is arguably more supportive of Taiwan than ever. Trump would immediately find himself crosswise of a broad and passionate bipartisan coalition were he to attempt to sacrifice Taiwan in a new deal with Beijing.
Strong congressional support for Taiwan reflects broader public sentiment. New polling from Timothy Rich finds over 63 percent of Americans would support the United States defending Taiwan if it were attacked by China, including 65 percent of Republicans. Meanwhile, 77 percent of Americans and 82 percent of Republicans hold unfavorable opinions of China. After making competition with China a centerpiece of his political career, Trump cannot afford to contradict elite and popular opinion on this critical issue. Trump’s focus on “stay[ing] unified” in Congress would be fatally undermined by sacrificing Taiwan, which is why his own interests depend on the island’s defense.
Taiwan Is Not Ukraine—Republican Support for Taiwan
Trump’s unconventional, transactional approach to US foreign policy is well known. In this context, many worry Trump’s skepticism about the value of supporting Ukraine foreshadows a similar approach to Taiwan. Yet the political dynamics surrounding Ukraine and Taiwan could not be more different. At the beginning of 2025, 67 percent of Republicans thought the United States was providing “too much” assistance to Ukraine (a figure that has since declined). The fact that a similar percentage of Republicans would support the United States defending Taiwan if it were attacked illustrates how differently Trump’s political base views the two issues.
In fact, a common complaint among Republican Ukraine skeptics is that support for Ukraine detracts from cross-strait deterrence. Vice President J.D. Vance, for example, complained during the campaign that “we’re sending all the damn weapons to Ukraine and not Taiwan.” Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) similarly advocates for reduced support for Ukraine to better defend Taiwan from China. Whatever the merits of these arguments––and there are good reasons to be skeptical of them––most Republicans are incredibly hawkish on China and are among Taiwan’s loudest champions.
This support is reflected in the words and deeds of the Trump administration. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have both expressed staunch support for Taiwan. While speaking with his Japanese counterpart, Hegseth declared that “America is committed to sustaining robust, ready and credible deterrence in the Indo Pacific, including across the Taiwan Strait.” A leaked internal Pentagon “strategic guidance” memo signed by Hegseth emphasized that the “denial of a Chinese fait accompli seizure of Taiwan . . . is the Department’s sole pacing scenario.” During his Senate nomination hearing, Rubio stated it was “critical” for the United States to defend Taiwan from China. Trump’s new undersecretary of defense for policy, Elbridge Colby, is widely known for his view that “the U.S. must prioritize Taiwan over Ukraine.”
These clearly stated hawkish positions on Taiwan by some of Trump’s key allies add to the congressional constraint. While Trump may be expert at expanding the range of what his supporters find acceptable, sacrificing Taiwan would be a bridge too far. Any attempt to do so would face a swift and forceful coalition of Republicans who on this issue are aligned with Trump’s fiercest critics. The domestic political dynamics surrounding Taiwan could not be more different than the politics surrounding Ukraine.
Vague by Design?
Concern over Taiwan is a natural consequence of Trump’s transactional style and, tariff skirmishes aside, lack of early explicit signals about US China policy. Significantly, however, American and Taiwanese audiences are not the only ones unnerved. As Bonny Lin, John Culver, and Brian Hart note, “Many in Beijing don’t know where Washington stands.” This may be by design. As Jonathan Czin pointed out in January, “Beijing craves clarity from Washington.” By prioritizing border security, negotiations over Ukraine, and the broader Middle East early in his term, Trump has heeded Czin’s advice and kept Beijing guessing.
There are clear advantages to this strategy. First, it forces China into a more restrained posture while it gradually “connect[s] the dots.” China is unable to take the initiative while it remains unclear about the broad contours of US policy. The benefit of this approach is clear when contrasted with the opportunity Beijing seized to lay down a marker early in the Biden administration. During the contentious March 2021 high-level talks in Anchorage, Yang Jiechi confidently lectured that “the United States does not have the qualification to say that it wants to speak to China from a position of strength.” Depriving China a similar opportunity at the beginning of the Trump administration is tactically sound.
Second, by first solidifying relationships across Asia, resetting expectations in Europe, and regaining the initiative in the Middle East, Trump is positioning the United States to engage China from a position of strength. The first day of the administration saw Secretary Rubio meet with his Indian, Japanese, and Australian Quad counterparts in Washington. As India’s external affairs minister explained, this “underlines the priority [the Quad] has in the foreign policy of its member states.” The US-Philippines Balikatan joint military exercises in April and Secretary Hegseth’s early visit to Guam, the Philippines, and Japan similarly bolster the US security posture in advance of more substantive engagement with Beijing.
To date, the tariff skirmish is the only major indicator of the administration’s approach to China. Whatever its merits, China’s aggressive reciprocal tariff response was unique. This led Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to claim China was “goaded . . . into a bad position” and isolated as a “bad actor.” Such isolation may have been a major factor in Beijing’s decision to send senior official He Lifeng to Switzerland for de-escalatory talks. The 16 million Chinese jobs at risk and potential 2.6 percent contraction in gross domestic productwere also likely major factors in bringing Beijing to the table. Increased security leverage, economic isolation, and studied reticence facilitate US initiative in the competition with China, even if the latter aspect of this strategy has the unfortunate side-effect of unnerving Taiwan and its supporters.
Conclusion
Randall Shriver, an assistant secretary of defense during the first Trump administration, acknowledges that “the search for the big deal is part of this president’s character.” This characteristic combined with prolonged ambiguity has led some to speculate that Trump may use Taiwan as a chip to strike a grand bargain with China. At the extreme, some officials in Taipei are reportedly asking, “Is he going to change the status quo, accepting the annexation of Taiwan?”
These concerns overlook both the significant constraints on Trump’s decision-making as well as the likely strategic rationale for studied silence. All leaders are subject to “two-level games” that require the support of domestic constituents to make international bargains. Sacrificing Taiwan is well outside the purview of what Trump’s key constituents would accept, even if Trump projects the appearance of having unlimited discretion. Past crises over Taiwan provide further evidence of the considerable leverage congressional leaders have over presidential decision-making on this key issue.
It is also far from clear that Trump would choose to sacrifice Taiwan even if he had such discretion. Calculated silence about how the United States would respond to a Chinese attack on Taiwan is in line with the longstanding policy of “strategic ambiguity.” Such reticence also makes sense as part of a broader strategy that keeps China guessing while the United States fortifies its security posture.