Tucker Carlson once branded himself a "China hawk," casting the CCP as a threat to middle America. In an interview with The Economist on March 20, Carlson advocated abandoning Taiwan, arguing that the US has hit its limits and should “share power” with Beijing. 

He proposes a fundamental disruption to the established peace and stability that has characterized the Pacific since World War II. He promotes an insidious trap of skepticism. Americans and Taiwanese should provide a clear-eyed, factual response to Tucker’s skepticism.

This growing doubt is not an accident. It is a result of a sophisticated cognitive warfare campaign designed to break our most important democratic alliances by twisting small truths into weapons of mass confusion. 

It is striking that Carlson's new arguments sound eerily like CCP propaganda. When he frames China’s ambitions as a natural “sphere of influence,” like a modern Monroe Doctrine, he is putting a respectable, Western-sounding voice to Beijing’s “one China principle.” 

He is validating a psychological campaign designed to break the will of democratic allies before a single shot is ever fired, echoing the CCP's own narrative that the East is rising, and the West is declining.

To fight back, we should stop talking about treating Taiwan as a national security charity case and start talking about it as an element of US prosperity. The landmark US-Taiwan Semiconductor Pact, signed in January, is all the proof one needs.

Through this deal, Taiwanese companies like TSMC are investing NT$8 trillion (US$250 billion) into US-based projects. Moreover, the government is backing the investment with another NT$8 trillion in credit guarantees. It is a huge bet on US manufacturing.

Chips with everything

The main goal is to bring 40% of the semiconductor supply chain to the US. By making these chips domestically, the US can ensure the security of this critical tech used by the US military and economy.

This strategy is not theoretical. It can be seen happening across the country, especially in states becoming hubs for advanced chip manufacturing. Arizona is ground zero for this major shift, with TSMC's total investment swelling to NT$5.3 trillion for a massive "gigafab cluster" of three plants. 

One impact is the employment of 40,000 construction jobs and tens of thousands of well-paid permanent technical jobs. In Texas, GlobalWafers is pouring NT$248 billion into silicon wafer production in Sherman, with plans to hire 650 engineers and technicians by 2028. These projects demonstrate that Taiwan can stimulate high-tech job growth in the US heartland, directly refuting the lie that the island is a drain on our "America First" agenda.

Meanwhile, in Taiwan, the CCP is relentlessly pushing its own brand of skepticism, the idea that the US is an unreliable fake friend that will eventually cut a deal with Beijing and abandon them. This narrative is the mirror image of what Americans are being told —  Taiwan is a wealthy free-rider not worth the fight. 

Both lies are engineered to trap the two audiences in a self-reinforcing cycle of distrust. By claiming the US “cannot defend Taiwan,” Carlson is providing a massive propaganda victory for the CCP and undermining US deterrence. He is providing Beijing the "proof" it needs to tell the Taiwanese that their closest partner has already given up on them.

And what about the claim that the US military equipment sold to Taiwan is just "overpriced scrap metal"? That slur falls apart when you look at their "porcupine strategy." 

This year, Taiwan will spend a record 3.2% of its GDP on defense, focusing on smart, asymmetric tools like Taiwan-made Hsiung Feng anti-ship missiles and thousands of locally built Jackal drones. These are not useless toys, they are precisely the weapons needed to make an invasion so costly and bloody that the People's Liberation Army would hesitate to attempt it.

Fast-tracked

In mid-March, Taiwan’s parliament approved a NT$288 billion arms deal, a move aimed at locking in delivery schedules for vital equipment. By fast-tracking this approval, Taipei is securing HIMARS rocket systems, M109A7 howitzers, and a stockpile of Javelin and TOW missiles. 

This massive financial commitment generates a clear message: Taiwan is serious about its own defense and wants to show Washington it’s paying for its security. This investment will elevate Taiwan’s annual defense budget to more than 3% of its GDP. 

By focusing on domestic and US mobile, lethal, and affordable defense systems, Taiwan is committing to self-reliance and meeting the burden-sharing demands of the American people.

Avoiding Tucker’s propaganda trap depends on recognizing the facts. Despite its small size (physical and population), Taiwan has become the US’ seventh largest trading partner. The latest US-Taiwan trade deal offers significant benefits for US small-and medium-sized businesses, providing easier market access and lower tax burdens. 

Walking away from Taiwan would be more than a military retreat. The US would be voluntarily giving up its leadership in the most economically vibrant region in the world. It would hand the CCP the power to weaponize global supply chains against the US and the rest of the world, which could trigger an economic shock that would make the inflation of the early 2020s look trivial.

The goal of Tucker’s skepticism campaign is to make surrender feel like realism and abandonment feel like common sense. But a world where the US abandons its allies is not a safer world — it is a poorer, more dangerous world where the rules of global trade and human rights are written in Beijing to benefit Beijing.

Old reminders

In 1938, when Neville Chamberlain signed the Munich Agreement that allowed Nazi Germany to annex the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia, he claimed the agreement would bring "peace for our time." In doing so, Chamberlain abandoned democratic Czechoslovakia to Hitler’s malevolent plans to conquer Europe. 

Similarly, abandoning Taiwan would illustrate the CCP's argument that the US is a feckless ally and democracy is a failed experiment. What follows for the CCP is seizing opportunities to control the global economy's critical resources.

By calling out this manipulation, strengthening our economic ties, and demanding clarity from our leaders, we can make certain Tucker’s "great pivot" to isolationism is a historical footnote. Securing Taiwan’s autonomy is vital to maintaining the rules-based international order that has ensured regional stability and prosperity for over 70 years. 

This order is not a burden to be cast off, it is the very foundation of US strength. Our choice is to lead in the Pacific by standing with our most capable partners, or we can submit to rules devised by a hostile, aggressive, and imperialist regime. 

The choice is between a future of democratic resilience and progress or a slow retreat into the irrelevance of Tucker’s “skepticism” trap.