TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Analysts say President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) may struggle to meet mounting pressure from the Trump administration to boost defense spending following the recall vote failure.
On Saturday, all recall attempts targeting 24 Kuomintang legislators and suspended Hsinchu Mayor Kao Hung-an (高虹安) were rejected. American scholar Thomas Shattuck, a longtime observer of Taiwan and cross-strait affairs, told CNA the result is unlikely to alter US-Taiwan relations in any major way.
Shattuck, senior program manager at the University of Pennsylvania's Perry World House, said the failed recalls preserve the status quo in bilateral ties. However, he added the Trump administration is likely to continue pressuring Taiwan to raise its defense budget—an increasingly difficult task for Lai without control of the legislature.
Elbridge Colby, now a US defense official, in March called on Taiwan to boost its military budget to 10% of GDP. Though he has recently focused more on Indo-Pacific and European defense spending, US Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs John Noh mentioned Taiwan’s defense spending during an April congressional hearing.
At the time, Noh said Taiwan had committed to increasing its defense budget to over 3% of GDP. However, he stressed that Taiwan must still "do significantly more" to bolster its asymmetric warfare capabilities.
Raymond Kuo (郭泓均), head of the US-based RAND Corporation's Taiwan Policy Initiative, said he was somewhat surprised by the recall results. He had expected at least a few lawmakers to be ousted, given the energy and enthusiasm of Taiwan’s civil society in mobilizing the campaigns.
However, voter turnout was relatively low by Taiwanese standards, and it was difficult for recall supporters to clear the required 25% threshold, he said. Kuo emphasized that how the opposition interprets the results will largely determine their impact on US-Taiwan relations.
Kuo said some political analysts, including Nathan Batto, a research fellow at Academia Sinica and expert on Taiwan elections, believe the campaigns pushed opposition parties to moderate their tone and policies in the legislature.
Given next year’s local elections, Kuo said the opposition is likely to maintain a relatively moderate posture. “That said, I’ve also heard rumors suggesting that the opposition may now adopt a ‘scorched earth’ strategy to further obstruct the DPP government,” he said.
If the opposition remains moderate, Kuo said some form of compromise remains possible, particularly on raising the defense and foreign affairs budgets. This would align with US priorities of strengthening both conventional defense and whole-of-society resilience.
“If the opposition does not moderate, we will face prolonged gridlock,” he warned. Unless the Lai administration offers concessions on other key domestic policies, Taiwan’s defense budget is unlikely to surpass 3% of GDP.
If Lai is unable to raise the defense budget, Kuo said Taiwan might be forced to halt certain projects, such as the indigenous submarine program, to redirect funding toward more asymmetric capabilities.
Regardless of the outcome, he added, Taiwan will face greater difficulty convincing the US it is serious about its security, raising doubts in Washington about Taipei’s attitude toward and commitment to defense.
