US delays Taiwan arms package ahead of Trump Xi summit

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A Maritime Self-Defense Force P-3C patrol plane (back) flies next to a Philippine military aircraft near the Bashi Channel during joint military exercises on Tuesday in this image posted to X. japantimes.co.jp

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The Trump administration has delayed announcing a multibillion-dollar arms package for Taiwan that had already received informal approval from senior Republican and Democratic lawmakers, The New York Times reports via The Japan Times. At the same time, Japan, the United States and the Philippines have conducted joint naval and aerial drills near the Bashi Channel — the waterway between Taiwan and the Philippines — for the first time under their Multilateral Maritime Cooperative Activity framework, according to Japan’s Defense Ministry.

The juxtaposition is a reminder that “deterrence” is not a single instrument. Exercises require ships, aircraft, crews, fuel and time in contested waters; arms transfers require signatures, export licenses and political will. The first is visible and immediate, and its costs are paid by the militaries that deploy. The second is bureaucratic until it isn’t — and can be paused quietly.

According to the Times, the Taiwan package includes air-defense missiles and had been moving through the standard process: the State Department sent it to Congress in January for informal review, and lawmakers signed off. Since then, officials told the newspaper, the package has sat inside the State Department after White House direction not to proceed, with the aim of avoiding angering Xi Jinping before President Donald Trump’s planned visit to Beijing in April.

That sequencing matters because it teaches regional actors what is negotiable. Taiwan can read the delay as proof that even approved sales can be re-timed for summit optics. China can read it as evidence that pressure works at the margins and that U.S. commitments are contingent on the calendar. Allies who show up for exercises — Japan flying a Maritime Self-Defense Force P-3C patrol aircraft alongside U.S. and Philippine forces — learn that their deployments are not automatically matched by Washington’s willingness to finalize material support when it complicates diplomacy.

The Bashi Channel drills ran from Feb. 20 through Thursday, with flight training on Tuesday, Japan’s Joint Staff Office said. The arms package delay has no comparable public timeline, beyond the White House’s apparent preference to keep it out of the way until after the Beijing summit.

In the waters near Taiwan, the aircraft flew on schedule. In Washington, the paperwork did not.