US President Donald Trump recently said, after meeting Chinese leader Xi Jinping, that the pending US$14 billion (NT$438.3 billion) arms package for Taiwan was “a very good negotiating chip” with China and that he was holding it “in abeyance,” depending on Beijing’s behavior.

Taipei’s response was swift. President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) called US arms sales a key deterrent to regional conflict and insisted Taiwan would not be traded away. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said US Taiwan policy remained unchanged, while a bipartisan group of US senators warned Trump that American support for Taiwan was not up for negotiation.

These responses were a necessary first step in damage control. They are not enough to undo the harm caused by the mixed signals from the second Trump administration.

Treating arms sales to Taiwan as leverage in US-China diplomacy is not only a repudiation of the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) and the Six Assurances. It also seriously endangers Taiwan’s defense resilience.

The current dynamic raises critical questions about how Taiwan can prepare its defense when its primary arms provider is willing to delay sales for diplomatic leverage. More importantly, Taiwan must ask how it can get through this administration with minimal damage to its military readiness.

There is no perfect formula. Minimizing the damage requires national political unity behind indigenous industry, sustained diplomatic engagement in Washington, and the best possible use of what Taiwan already possesses.

Mitigating dependency on an uncertain partner

What makes Trump’s posture particularly damaging is that it comes at a moment when Taiwan has deepened its dependency on Washington while weakening future indigenous capabilities, even as China’s military buildup continues.

In early May, Taiwan’s opposition-controlled legislature passed a special defense budget of NT$780 billion (US$24 billion) structured entirely around the purchase of US arms: NT$300 billion for the package announced by Washington in December 2025, and NT$480 billion for a further US package expected later in the year.

While the budget is historically high, indigenous programs were stripped out in the process. Funding for approximately 200,000 drones from domestic manufacturers was removed from the special budget and deferred to the regular budget, meaning no orders are expected before 2027 at the earliest.

This weakens Taiwan’s military industry in three ways: it undermines asymmetric capabilities and the porcupine strategy, reduces Taiwan’s opportunities for international engagement through drone cooperation, and reinforces its dependency on the US.

Taken together, these effects are particularly dangerous because the current US administration’s support for Taipei is highly transactional. Taiwan is binding itself more tightly to Washington precisely as Washington publicly signals that its commitment is contingent.

Taiwan did not choose this dependency voluntarily, at least not in its totality. Unlike most states facing uncertainty from a primary arms supplier, Taiwan cannot simply diversify procurement.

The absence of large-scale alternative suppliers is a structural limitation imposed by decades of Chinese pressure on potential partners.

Even within these limits, three lines of action remain available to support Taiwan’s military preparedness in the near future.

National political unity behind indigenous industry

In light of a possible halt in arms sales from Washington, Taiwan needs a serious paradigm shift. In an ideal scenario, factionalism would disappear for the sake of national defense, but that is far from realistic in Taiwan’s current political landscape.

The opposition should nonetheless conduct a fair assessment of current security priorities and identify where the passed budget falls short. This could open space to reconsider rejected defense spending, especially the drone procurement needed to sustain Taiwan’s drone battalions and defense industrial capacity.

Reconsidering that funding would serve Taiwan and the KMT’s political strategy. It would send a clear message about the party’s commitment to national defense, addressing one of its biggest political weaknesses.

Diplomatic leverage in Washington

Given the absence of alternative large-scale suppliers, Taiwan’s most actionable external strategy is to protect the existing relationship through its most institutionally stable channel: the US Congress, which has shown consistent support for Taiwan across multiple administrations.

A bipartisan coalition has already shown its willingness to push back against Trump’s decision to hold Taiwan’s arms sales. The broader pro-Taiwan lobbying ecosystem, including organizations such as the Formosan Association for Public Affairs, is key to sustaining and deepening that legislative pressure.

This is not a permanent solution to structural dependency. It is the most realistic means of limiting the damage within the current political cycle.

Keeping the issue politically salient and the current dynamic publicly contested ensures that further retreats from the TRA and Six Assurances do not go unchallenged.

Optimal output from existing assets

Despite the pause in arms sales, Taiwan cannot afford to waste more time. The current security landscape requires Taiwan to take a decisive step toward fully embracing asymmetric warfare.

With budgets and allies constrained, innovation and ingenuity are mandatory. Taiwan’s natural geographic advantages still receive too little attention in its asymmetric defense planning.

Civil defense preparation, logistics, and reservist training could also meaningfully improve Taiwan’s defensive readiness without requiring a single additional procurement.

These measures are less eye-catching than buying HIMARS rocket artillery systems, but they are mandatory if Taiwan is to raise military readiness despite looming procurement problems.

The road ahead

Taiwan’s dependency on the US has been built over decades of growing international isolation caused by Chinese pressure. Imagining it can be dismantled quickly is fantasy.

Taiwan nonetheless faces a critical moment for the future of its military capabilities. No one knows how long Trump will hold up arms sales. The pause could last weeks, months, or even until the end of his term.

Worse, a future administration could take advantage of this fait accompli and further weaken Washington’s commitments to Taipei.

This is why Taiwan must play the few cards it holds: a growing drone industry that deserves proper funding, strong bipartisan support in Washington that can keep the issue politically salient, and geographic defenses that make an invasion profoundly costly.

Surviving the next two and a half years without catastrophic damage to defense readiness would already be a victory for Taiwan. Achieving that, however, requires a proactive stance.