The Munich Security Conference proved a tough training ground for Democratic firebrand and potential US presidential contender Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who made headlines for her word salad response to a simple question about the US defending Taiwan.
AOC’s foreign policy foray also involved mistakenly asserting that Venezuela is located south of the equator. Donald Trump couldn’t resist a dig: she and California Governor Gavin Newsom, who also spoke in Munich, made fools of themselves and were “an embarrassment to our nation”, he said.
Yet minutes later, it was Trump who shocked many in Washington’s foreign policy establishment when he suggested he was consulting Chinese President Xi Jinping about future American arms sales to Taiwan.
It followed a reporter’s question about Trump’s recent call with Xi, who warned the US “must handle the issue of arms sales to Taiwan with prudence”, according to an official Chinese summary of the call.
“I have a response, I’m talking to him [Xi] about it,” Trump said. “We had a good conversation, and we’ll make a determination pretty soon. We have a very good relationship with President Xi – in fact, I’ll be going in April.”
Several analysts accused Trump of violating the Six Assurances – key, long-standing principles of US foreign policy on Taiwan communicated to the Taiwanese government in 1982 under then president Ronald Reagan. Among those undertakings was that the US “has not agreed to prior consultation [with China] on arms sales”.
David Sacks, a Taiwan expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, and a former staffer at the quasi-diplomatic American Institute in Taiwan, points out the wording – often misunderstood – did not say the US would never consult China about arms sales to Taiwan. It simply said the US had not agreed to it as a matter of course.
Even so, Sacks calls Trump’s statement “deeply misguided” and says it will deeply worry Taipei. “To me, it is a major faux pas, and a concession he gave without extracting anything in return. It is not something we should talk to the People’s Republic of China about. We should not give the PRC a veto on arms sales to Taiwan.”
The president may have only uttered a few words, but Sacks says his timing is atrocious. Taiwanese lawmakers are debating a special budget that would majorly lift defence spending – something Washington is demanding.
The budget is backed by President Lai Ching-te and the governing Democratic Progressive Party, but opposed by the major opposition party, the Kuomintang, which along with the Taiwan People’s Party can block legislation. A group of 37 US lawmakers wrote to Taiwanese MPs last week urging them to pass the bill.
Sacks says Trump’s remark hands the opposition a lifeline just as support for the special budget is accelerating. “It undercuts the short-term objective. At the more strategic level, it heightens a sense in Taiwan that the US is not reliable, that the US can’t be counted on. This is a sentiment that is already growing in Taiwan.”
Derek Grossman, professor of international relations at the University of Southern California, and Indo-Pacific expert at the Centre for a New American Security, said even if Trump was not violating the letter of the Six Assurances, he was violating the spirit.
“While Trump as president can make this type of call – it’s well within his authority and prerogative to do so – I do think it is a departure from long-standing US policy in the strait,” Grossman says. It stands in contrast to Trump’s actions thus far on Taiwan, he says, which have essentially maintained the status quo.
Washington’s large contingent of China hawks have feared Trump could make major concessions in his pursuit of a grand bargain with Beijing, such as formally changing US policy to oppose Taiwanese independence. However, the new National Security Strategy released late last year affirmed the US would maintain its stance that it “does not support any unilateral change to the status quo in the Taiwan Strait”.
And in December, the Trump administration approved a record $US11.1 billion ($16.2 billion) weapons sale to Taiwan – likely spurring Xi’s recent warning about prudence.
With Trump, it pays to heed his actions more than his many, many words. Still, Sacks argues the president made a strategic error – one that some analysts fear will be repeated as his much-hyped Beijing visit nears.
“Once you show the Chinese that we are willing to negotiate on Taiwan, that is something they are very happy to run with,” Sacks says. “It’s very important to say we’re not going to open any part of that to negotiation with China.”
Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter.
Michael Koziol is the North America correspondent for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald. He is a former Sydney editor, Sun-Herald deputy editor and a federal political reporter in Canberra.Connect via X or email.
