For Waltz, Advising Isolationist Trump Is a Taiwan-Size Challenge

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(Bloomberg) – On a trip to Taiwan last year, Florida congressman Mike Waltz stressed that the US needed to adopt “strategic clarity” and told China that an attack on the island would be met with a strong US response.

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Now that he’s a defense adviser to president-elect Donald Trump, Waltz is starting to see the importance of the mystery.

After more than 24 years in the Army, Waltz made a name for himself in Washington as a China hawk, serving on a House task force to coordinate policy toward Beijing. He introduced bills to prevent government pension funds from being invested in China’s military, reduced US dependence on precious minerals from China, and made the defense of Taiwan a specific mission of the US military.

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And in an interview with Bloomberg News last year, Waltz, 50, said the biggest obstacle to Chinese President Xi Jinping is that the US and its allies have clearly said they will help the island.

“I think we need to move from strategic ambiguity to strategic clarity,” Waltz said in an April 2023 interview in Seoul. “If we don’t go to help Taiwan, what does that mean for Japan, South Korea and the Philippines? It means they’re starting to question their cooperation with us and our commitment to them – so, what I think that will mean is nuclear Japan and nuclear South Korea, because they’re going to have to fend for themselves. “

There’s just one problem. Waltz’s new boss swept back into the White House as voters embraced his America First-brand approach to foreign policy, prioritizing domestic production and avoiding foreign capture.

That’s bad news for Taiwan, the self-governing island that has long been the largest of the world’s superpowers, and home to major semiconductor manufacturing facilities that Trump and Democrats alike are eager to return to US shores.

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Now, Waltz is faced with the unenviable task of reconciling his views with those of his boss – under the watchful eye of an Indo-Pacific that has been shaken in recent years as Beijing seeks to project its military might and test the US’s resolve with an effort around it. self-governing island.

Waltz’s spokesman said in a statement that “President Trump will keep all options on the table in the Indo-Pacific and Rep. Waltz will implement policies that are consistent with the president’s agenda.”

Those comments are a marked departure from Waltz’s remarks during a congressional delegation’s trip to Taiwan, South Korea and Japan last year, when he stressed the importance of arming Taiwan as quickly as possible and sold the Americans on the importance of protecting it.

‘Race Against Time’

“I feel like we’re in a race against time,” he told Bloomberg last year. “The intelligence community is blinking red, yet the administration in our national security community is shaking.”

Implicit in the change in tone is an acknowledgment that Trump – who has described Taiwan as “the apple of President Xi’s eye” – largely sees the island as a mooch that has stolen an important industry while relying on the US for protection.

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“They took almost 100% of our chip business,” Trump said in a recent June interview with Bloomberg. “Taiwan has to pay for our security. You know, we’re no different than an insurance company. Taiwan is not giving us anything.”

Trump’s comments sparked chaos in Taipei, where officials sought to clarify their intentions and President Lai Ching-te’s administration has been discussing ways to appease the incoming US president by buying weapons and power that they plan to announce if Trump takes office. people who know this matter.

But Waltz’s tightrope act has begun. Last week, he met with Taiwanese officials at an event in Washington. People familiar with the discussion stressed that it was an informal meeting that was not organized during the transition period and did not involve an in-depth discussion of policy.

Still, one person familiar with the discussion expressed confidence that Waltz would maintain his pro-Taiwan stance and that Washington and Taipei would have open channels of discussion on security cooperation.

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The Taiwan delegation included Lin Fei-fan and Hsu Szu-chien of Taiwan’s National Security Council, and Vincent Chao, who used to head the political division at the Economic and Cultural Representative Office of Taipei in the US, the de facto ambassador, people they know. said this issue.

A spokesman for Taiwan’s representative office in Washington said the exchange of national security teams from both sides was part of their duties and declined to comment further on their discussion.

One China policy

Central to the brewing policy debate is whether to change the so-called One China policy and the Taiwan Relations Act, which for decades have governed US-Taiwan relations by leaving it unclear whether the US would come to Taiwan’s defense in the event of an attack. . China has said it wants to unite the island with the mainland and Xi has not ruled out the use of force, if necessary.

President Joe Biden has shaken that balance by saying more than once that he would defend the island militarily if China attacked.

Trump told the Wall Street Journal editorial board in October that he would address the issue by telling Xi that he would impose 150%-200% tariffs on China if he went to Taiwan.

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And when asked if he would use war to block the island, he replied: “I wouldn’t do that, because you respect me and you know I’m crazy.”

A person familiar with Waltz’s current thinking said that he also now believes that it will not come to the point of military conflict because the US and China will fight it out through economic competition.

Zack Cooper, a senior executive at the American Enterprise Institute, said the disagreements lead to Trump getting unexpected rewards because it can increase power, while the US Congress – especially Republicans – traditionally likes to be predictable with Taiwan.

“Incoming administration officials from Congress will have to decide between President-elect Trump’s unpredictability and his past statements allowing clear support for Taiwan,” he added.

—Courtesy of Yian Lee.

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