Why Has Donald Trump Delayed A $14 Billion Arms Deal For Taiwan Despite Congressional Approval?

US President Donald Trump has held off signing a $14 billion US arms sales package to Taiwan, even though Congress has cleared it, adding new uncertainty to military supplies for the island. Officials and analysts say Taiwan’s defence planning already struggles with long delays, and many argue the fresh pause changes little for its short-term combat readiness.

The delayed deal, centred on air defence systems and anti-drone technology such as Patriot missiles and National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems, is being treated very differently in Washington and Taipei. Trump has publicly called the package a "very good negotiating chip" in discussions with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, while Taiwan’s Defense Ministry says the island has received no formal notice of any postponement.

US arms sales to Taiwan and tensions with China

Trump and Xi met earlier this month, and their talks again placed US arms sales to Taiwan at the centre of US-China frictions. On the opening day, Xi warned Trump that Taiwan, which Beijing claims as part of its territory, could become a "very dangerous situation" if handled poorly, underlining how sensitive the weapons issue remains for both capitals.

Xi has not ruled out using force to bring Taiwan under Beijing’s control, and Chinese officials routinely object to US arms sales to Taiwan. Yet the US is still required by domestic law to support the island’s defence. That legal framework, created in 1979, sits alongside diplomatic understandings with Beijing and often fuels disagreement over what Washington has actually promised.

US arms sales to Taiwan and the Taiwan Relations Act

The Taiwan Relations Act came after US President Jimmy Carter recognised Beijing, the People’s Republic of China, and ended official relations and a mutual defence treaty with Taipei, then and now formally known as the Republic of China. Many members of Congress objected, with the Brookings Institution noting lawmakers believed Carter had made a "bad bargain," that undermined Taiwan’s safety.

Brookings explains congressional thinking this way: "They felt that by giving into Chinese demands that he terminate diplomatic relations with Taiwan and end the mutual defense treaty, Carter had left the island profoundly vulnerable," Brookings says. Legislators responded by passing the Taiwan Relations Act, ensuring Congress retained influence over US policy toward Taiwan and codifying defence commitments.

The law states Taiwan’s future should be settled by "peaceful means" and says the US "shall provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive character" that allow it to "maintain a sufficient self-defense capacity." Last week, chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell underlined that position, saying: "Our Taiwan policy remains unchanged, and the US continues to adhere to long-standing commitments consistent with the Taiwan Relations Act."

US arms sales to Taiwan: production delays and backlog

A separate 1982 US-China joint communique said Washington intended to gradually reduce arms sales to Taiwan if there were peaceful cross-strait developments. Beijing treats that as a binding pledge, but US officials insist Washington never agreed any timetable, nor a requirement to consult China before approving new arms packages, leaving the two sides with sharply different interpretations.

Since 1979, Taiwan has bought a wide range of US hardware, including destroyers, frigates, F-16 fighter jets, Abrams main battle tanks, TOW-2B and Javelin anti-tank missiles, Phalanx naval defence systems, fuel tankers and various support equipment. However, delivery has often been slow, with some orders taking many years and others never fully completed, leaving Taiwan waiting for key systems.

Jeff Abramson, senior non-resident fellow at the Center for International Policy, said delays are common. "It is not unusual for defense sales to take years to complete, sometimes never actually meeting full delivery," Abramson said. "Typically, arms are not already manufactured when they are first sold, but are instead orders and the timing of their delivery can depend on industrial capacity, US military needs for those weapons that might take preference, others who might be in line as higher priority to receive them, or simply changed situations between order and delivery," he said.

Those factors have produced a large backlog for Taiwan. An April 2026 report by the Taiwan Security Monitor project at George Mason University estimates almost $30 billion in US weapons destined for the island still await delivery. Joe O'Connor, assistant director at the project, lists examples that show how timelines differ widely between systems and contracts.

According to O'Connor, an order placed in 2024 for 291 small ALTIUS-600M loitering munitions was finished in 21 months. In contrast, a 2019 purchase of 108 Abrams tanks took 81 months, with final deliveries reaching Taiwan only last month. Taiwan is also still waiting for F-16 fighter jets ordered in 2019, with production and flight testing only recently moving ahead.

Taiwan’s Defense Ministry says that, as of April, only five of 23 major US arms packages agreed over the last decade have been fully delivered. Three more have arrived in part, while 15 items remain under production. The ministry lists both large systems and smaller precision weapons among those still in the pipeline.

Within Taiwan, the pattern has fed a policy debate over whether big, expensive weapons like tanks and fighter jets receive too much focus. Critics argue such systems take years to arrive, are vulnerable to China’s larger forces and may lock up funds that could support cheaper asymmetric weapons, including locally produced drones and anti-ship missiles.

Many Taiwanese strategists therefore advocate a "porcupine strategy" relying on numerous mobile, difficult-to-target systems to raise the cost of any attack. The Taiwan Security Monitor report notes that the current backlog is split almost equally between traditional platforms and asymmetric weapons, suggesting delays affect both categories rather than only big-ticket purchases.

Raymond Greene, the de facto US ambassador to Taiwan, has tried to play down concerns about the delays. Greene said there is a "misperception" about the extent of the problem, adding that the "vast majority" of current delays are tied to the F-16V fighter jet programme. Analysts, however, still see systemic strains in US defence production.

Those pressures help explain why Trump’s decision to postpone the latest $14 billion deal may not alter Taiwan’s near-term capabilities. Many items, including new Patriot missiles, would not have reached Taiwan for years. O'Connor says the delay could instead reorder the queue, pushing Taiwan behind other customers competing for the same systems.

The US, Israel and Gulf allies have been expending large numbers of costly anti-air missiles in the war with Iran, often to shoot down relatively cheap Iranian drones. Acting US Navy Secretary Hung Cao told lawmakers the Pentagon must first ensure enough stock for its own forces, suggesting that conflict has become a central factor in scheduling exports.

Analysts say Patriot deliveries were unlikely before several years anyway. A Foreign Policy Research Institute paper notes that advanced PAC-3 MSE interceptors need 24 months of production lead time for each missile and 30 months for the solid rocket motor. "Such timelines are due to physical industrial constraints, such as the lengthy curing time required for solid rocket motors and the complex, multi-year process of qualifying any new component supplier," the paper says.

The institute concludes that even rushing new orders offers little short-term help. "Even an emergency response moves at a pace that is strategically irrelevant in the short term," the FPRI paper says. That assessment suggests Taiwan would probably not field new Patriots from the delayed package before 2028 at the earliest, regardless of when Trump signs.

O'Connor argues that the more immediate effect of any signing delay lies in military planning. Taiwan’s armed forces structure training, reform and modernisation around expected deliveries, so uncertainty complicates long-term preparation. However, he stresses that weapons already under contract "appear to be ongoing regardless of a pause in future sales." Existing projects, in other words, continue unless Washington changes course more sharply.

Hung Cao’s testimony also highlighted another constraint: the US must replenish stocks drained by the Iran war before filling new foreign orders. That priority means Taiwan, like other partners, could find itself waiting longer. Officials have not ruled out further adjustments if US operational demands grow, leaving future delivery schedules exposed to events elsewhere.

Abramson notes that the strategic value of any arms package shifts over time. "As with almost all situations, other activities to defuse the situation will have more impact than the provision of arms," he said. For Taiwan, that means diplomacy, domestic defence reforms and efforts to expand local weapons production may matter as much as the pace of US deliveries.