Taiwan should be “nervous” about President Donald Trump’s trip this week to Beijing, a prominent Senate Armed Services Committee member said Tuesday, as surging gas prices and an uncertain U.S. ceasefire with Iran threaten to give China greater leverage.
The president’s eagerness to strike a deal — “any deal” — with Chinese leader Xi Jinping risks overturning decades of delicately managed diplomacy on Taiwan, Sen. Elissa Slotkin, a Michigan Democrat and former Pentagon official warned at POLITICO’s Global Security Summit.
From China’s perspective, “you’re in a catbird seat, waiting to see what Trump puts on the table,” she said. “One of the things I’ve been focused on, and frankly, a lot of us on a bipartisan basis, is don’t be so desperate for a deal that you give away the farm.”
Trump has touted the first summit with Xi of his second term as “potentially historic.” But U.S. allies worry that he could end up, perhaps inadvertently, disavowing American support for Taiwan, which China deems a renegade province.
The U.S. has sought to strike a delicate balance on Taiwan for decades. It officially acknowledges the self-governing island as distinct from the People’s Republic of China while avoiding showing support for its independence, which Beijing has cautioned could prompt war.
But even a subtle change in the U.S.’s current language — from, for example, “we do not support Taiwan independence” to “we oppose Taiwan independence” — could signal a change in Washington’s policy.
The Trump administration, in strategy documents, has signaled it no longer views China as a top security threat. But it also slapped punishing tariffs on China that briefly ignited a trade war before Washington and Beijing agreed to turn down the temperature.
Slotkin warned Trump, who has vacillated between threatening tariffs to praise of the Chinese leader, could easily fall into a trap.
“I cannot read the room on where these guys are on China,” she said. “They’ve given away some of our most sophisticated chips, on again off again yo-yo tariffs, and yet somehow still the Chinese are buying fewer soybeans than when we started a year and a half ago.”