President Donald Trump said he was still deliberating a major arms sale to Taiwan, floating what would amount to a significant change in American foreign policy following a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing.
“I’ll make a determination over the next fairly short period. I’m gonna make a determination,” he told reporters of the potential sale as Air Force One made its way back to the U.S. from China on Friday, saying he needed to speak to the person “that’s running Taiwan.”
The comments from the president — who acknowledged that Xi raised U.S.-Taiwan arm deals in their discussion — could amount to a fairly dramatic shift. One of the commitments that the administration of President Ronald Reagan made to Taiwan in 1982 — known as the Six Assurances — was that the U.S. wouldn’t consult with Beijing on weapon sales to the island.
But Trump insisted he wasn’t marking any change to American foreign policy in his conversation with the Chinese president.
“He brought that up,” Trump said of Xi. “He talked about that to me, obviously. So what am I going to do, say ‘I don’t want to talk to you about it because I have an agreement that was signed in 1982?’”
The president’s comments leave the future of a $14 billion arms deal with Taiwan, which Congress approved back in January, uncertain.
Trump’s statement could be of significant worry for the island’s advocates, who have for months fretted that Trump’s desire to strengthen the country’s economic relationship with China may see the president weaken its longstanding ironclad support for Taiwan. The Trump administration has regularly pushed back against the assertion that the president would abandon Taiwan.
“An actual kind of haggling or horse trading on arms sales, or a consultation on what we would or would not sell — that would be a break with precedent if that is something that the Chinese asked for, and something that the president is willing to grant,” said David Sacks, a former political-military expert at the U.S. diplomatic outpost in Taiwan.
Xi, Trump said, “feels very strongly” about the island and “doesn’t want to see a movement for independence.”
“I heard him out,” he said. “I didn’t make a comment on it. I heard him out. I have a lot of respect for him.”
Trump also refused to commit to coming to Taiwan’s defense in the event of a Chinese attack. Xi, he told reporters, had asked him the same question earlier on Friday.
“I don’t want to say that,” he said.“I’m not going to say that. There’s only one person that knows that. You know who it is? Me. I’m the only person. That question was asked to me today by President Xi. I said, ‘’I don’t talk about those things.”
Phelim Kine contributed to this report.
