President Trump said Wednesday he is preparing to speak with Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te as he weighs whether to approve a $14 billion arms sale to the island.
“l’ll speak to him. I speak to everybody. We have that situation very well in hand,” Trump told reporters when asked if he would make contact with Lai before deciding on the proposed package.
Trump also said, “we’ll work on that, the Taiwan problem,” offering no additional details. The comments follow remarks he made aboard Air Force One last week, when he said he intended to speak with the person “that’s running Taiwan.” Direct leader-to-leader communication between Washington and Taipei has been extremely limited since the U.S. switched diplomatic recognition to Beijing in 1979.
The issue of Taiwan was also raised during Trump’s recent summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing, where officials said Xi “stressed to President Trump that the Taiwan question is the most important issue in China-U.S. relations.” Trump later confirmed he discussed U.S. arms sales to Taipei “at length” with Xi, a move that cuts against long-standing U.S. practice of not coordinating such sales with Beijing.
