A former White House official in the first Trump administration said on Monday that President Donald Trump would never use Taiwan as a bargaining chip in dealings with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
But Alexander Gray, deputy assistant to Trump and chief of staff of the National Security Council from 2019 to 2021, told Taiwan’s Central News Agency on Sunday that because of domestic politics, the island nation has not demonstrated sufficient resolve to raise its defense spending, the Taipei Times reported.
“Taiwan has been a core national interest of the United States. Taiwan’s autonomy and sovereignty have been a core interest of ours for decades,” Gray said. “I don’t see any reason why President Trump would ever, for the first time in his … years as president, compromise on a core interest of the United States.”
Gray recently visited Taiwan and spoke at the annual Ketagalan Forum: Indo-Pacific Security Dialogue in Taipei earlier this month. Although he believes that Taiwan is moving in the right direction with its defense reforms, Gray said the scale of its planned budget increases remains inadequate given the magnitude of the threat from China.
This year, Taiwan allocated $21.5 billion for defense, equal to 2.45% of gross domestic product, the Times reported. President William Lai has repeatedly pledged to raise that figure above 3% of GDP.
Gray said that many of his conversations in Taiwan centered on complaints about Trump’s trade policy. But he said such concerns overlook a deeper shift in the administration’s stance.
“This [higher tariff] is not going to change, and I don’t think the next president, Republican or Democrat, is going to change it either,” he said. “That’s a new reality that we have to face … and if we keep arguing the premise, we’re wasting time and we’re distracting ourselves.”
He said Trump has made it clear that he views trade policy “as separate from strategic policy.”
“He thinks we can have a great strategic relationship while having very real concerns about a country’s trade policy,” Gray said.
Gray said that in Trump’s first term, the president sought to impose higher tariffs on several countries but was blocked by Cabinet members who raised concerns about damaging strategic partnerships.
“None of that’s happening anymore because there’s an understanding in this administration that these are two separate issues,” Gray said, adding that Taiwan should adapt to this new reality.
He suggested that Taiwan could appeal to Trump on bilateral trade by boosting investment in the U.S. and committing to projects that “create jobs,” thereby strengthening its case for lower tariffs.
The U.S. on Aug. 7 imposed a baseline 20% tariff on Taiwanese goods, higher than the 15% levied on imports from Japan and South Korea, raising concerns about the impact on Taiwan’s economy.
After the announcement, Lai said the Trump administration remained open to further tariff discussions, adding that the sides have yet to complete a trade deal and call the tariff “provisional.”
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