Open Questions | Trump ‘unlikely to take the initiative to use Taiwan as a bargaining chip’ with Beijing, Bonnie Glaser says
Foreign policy analyst Glaser says incoming US president is likely to have learned from his first term in the White House
Some analysts are saying that American support for Taiwan could be conditional under next president Donald Trump, and that he could use Taiwan as a bargaining chip. What does a second Trump term mean for Taiwan, especially with a Republican-controlled Congress?
After the Trump-Xi summit in Mar-a-Lago in April [2017], Trump ruled out the possibility of talking directly again to president Tsai. He told Reuters that he had established “a very good personal relationship with President Xi” and said he wouldn’t want to cause difficulty for Xi and therefore before having another call with Taiwan’s president he “would certainly want to speak to [Xi] first”.
Trump likely drew lessons from this episode. In his second term as president, Trump is unlikely to take the initiative to use Taiwan as a bargaining chip. However, if Xi presents a specific task related to Taiwan, it is possible that Trump might consider whether he can use the request to obtain something that he wants. For example, I wonder if Trump might be willing to go beyond the traditional US statement that the US “does not support Taiwan independence” and accede to Xi’s appeal that Trump say that the US “opposes Taiwan independence” in return for something that he wants on trade.
