President-elect Donald Trump has expressed that U.S. allies in the Indo–Pacific should spend more on defense.
News Analysis
President-elect Donald Trump’s second term in office will likely bring sweeping changes to the nation’s Indo–Pacific policy and ongoing strategic competition with China.
Leaders throughout Congress and the national security space are therefore preparing for an era marked by increased confrontation as the administration pushes back on the Chinese regime’s aggression in the region.
Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), chair of the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, said he expects a second Trump administration to adopt a firm approach to foreign policy in the Indo–Pacific.
“During Trump’s first administration, peace through strength was at the forefront of American foreign policy,” Moolenaar said in a statement shared with The Epoch Times by the committee’s staff.
That strength, Moolenaar suggests, would extend to the U.S. allies throughout the Indo–Pacific, where Trump is expected to push regional partners to increase their defense spending in order to receive continued U.S. support.
“The entire free world must act with urgency to invest in its collective military power in order to deter conflict, support global prosperity, and defend our values against CCP [Chinese Communist Party] aggression,” Moolenaar said.
Those increased expectations of Washington’s allies could bring both risk and opportunities to U.S. relations in the region as the nation attempts to pressure regional partners into adopting a more forward-facing defense posture.
They will also likely bring increased volatility to the United States’ relationship with China and the CCP, including by shaping the potential for an armed conflict between the two superpowers over the future of Taiwan.
Taiwan Flashpoint
The CCP claims that Taiwan is part of its territory. Though the communist regime has never controlled the island, CCP leader Xi Jinping has made unifying Taiwan with the mainland a legacy issue of his rule and has ordered the Party’s military wing to prepare for a potential conflict by 2027.
The United States does not officially support Taiwanese independence or the forceful unification of the two territories. But, since 1979, Washington has maintained obligations to sell Taiwan the arms it needs to maintain its self-defense.
Likewise, the United States has maintained a policy of so-called strategic ambiguity since 1979, in which it will neither confirm nor deny its willingness to enter a military conflict to defend Taiwan from CCP aggression.
However, U.S. political and military leadership have signaled that they are preparing for such an eventuality. To that end, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti issued a guidance document in September ordering the Navy to prepare for war with China by 2027.
The United States is not interested in preserving Taiwan’s independence simply because of its democratic government. The island nation is responsible for manufacturing more than half of the world’s semiconductors and nearly 90 percent of the globe’s advanced semiconductors, used in electronic components for everything from laptops to pickup trucks to hypersonic missiles.
To that end, Trump’s transactional approach to international security deals has thrown Taiwan’s central role in the global economy into question.
In July, for example, Trump called for Taiwan to pay more for its defense, though the island is already one of the largest purchasers of arms from the United States.
Since 1950, Taiwan has spent more than $50 billion on U.S. weapons, making it the fourth largest purchaser of U.S. arms behind Japan, Israel, and Saudi Arabia, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.
Trump has also suggested that military force would not be necessary to protect Taiwan from the CCP and has instead claimed that a severe enough economic threat to China would prevent an invasion of Taiwan.
Russell Hsiao, executive director of the Global Taiwan Institute think tank, told The Epoch Times that Trump’s ambiguous stance on Taiwan’s defense could invite further CCP attempts to sway American and Taiwanese decision-makers away from aggressively defending the island’s de facto independence.
“The president-elect has already indicated that he would be less clear than President Biden as to whether he thought the United States had an obligation to come to Taiwan’s defense if China decided to invade the island,” Hsiao said.
“Washington and Taipei should be prepared for Beijing to exploit this in its cognitive warfare campaigns and quickly develop their own counter-strategies.”
Hsiao noted, however, that Trump was “unencumbered by past precedents and norms,” which could help him to strengthen the bilateral relationship by overcoming the self-imposed restrictions of the past that have limited U.S. involvement with Taiwan on the international stage.
As such, he said, asking for Taiwan to accept a larger share of the financial burden for its defense could be an opportunity for Taiwanese leaders to demonstrate their resolve and, in the process, garner renewed U.S. support through access to increased arms sales.
“President-elect Trump is expected to emphasize burden-sharing in security ties with allies and partners,” Hsiao said.
“While this may be generally seen in a negative light by most allies and partners, it should be noted that this could lead to it being more forward-leaning in providing a wider variety of arms to Taiwan suited to a range of potential contingencies.”
Trump Expected to Deliver Security—at a Price
Taiwanese leadership responded by saying the island was committed to taking on more responsibility and defending itself from CCP aggression.
Taiwanese leadership may consider making a substantial arms purchase early on in the second Trump administration as a sort of down payment to demonstrate its resolve to the administration.
John Mills, former cybersecurity chief in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, said that ensuring a robust defense budget would help Taiwan to make sure U.S. support did not flag and that military expenditure was “the primary metric” used by Trump to determine an ally’s willingness to defend itself.
“We have a very poor track record when we carry the burden for other countries,” Mills said.
“All that is being asked is at least 2 percent of GDP spent on defense and, in reality, 4 to 5 percent is the new 2 percent.”
At present, Taiwan spends about 2.4 percent of its GDP on defense, according to data compiled by the CIA.
Other U.S. allies in the region are more varied. South Korea spends about 2.7 percent of its GDP on defense, and the Philippines spends only about 1.5 percent. Japan is in a unique situation because it is currently spending 1.4 percent but is in the middle of a historic reform of its military policy and strategy, which will see that figure rise to at least 2 percent in the coming years.
Yet none of those numbers at their current levels are likely to please the incoming Trump administration if it is truly so set on encouraging the nation’s allies in the Indo–Pacific to take point on confronting the Chinese regime’s global expansion.
There may be some wiggle room, however, as the administration looks to use less traditional pathways to secure its international interests.
Sam Kessler, a geopolitical analyst at the North Star Support Group risk advisory company, said that a hallmark of the first Trump administration was its ability to think outside of the box, and that would likely only increase now, given Trump’s growing distance from the old guard of the Republican Party.
“The Trump administration in the first term was innovative, proactive, and resourceful in the deals and agreements they crafted, so expect something similar, as well as a little predicted unpredictability, too,” Kessler told The Epoch Times.
“This may be done in the form of trade deals, security arrangements, foreign investments, and policies that may help reduce the threat levels, too. It could be a wide range of things that could be utilized.”
On that note, Kessler suggests that Trump would revisit trade deals and strong economic measures when confronting China and might prove surprisingly willing to take a proactive stance in the bilateral relationship with China.
Such economic deals, he said, could have the secondary objective of smoothing out regional tensions and preserving allied security while holding the CCP accountable economically.
“We may end up witnessing a series of deals and agreements that may be related to multiple issues that are non-related to the original purpose of a negotiation in order to reduce tensions between multiple parties in other areas,” Kessler said.
In all, it is clear that U.S. allies in the Indo–Pacific will be expected to contribute more to the common defense in the region, and such efforts will not go unseen.
With that much in mind, Mills said that he believes the likelihood of an armed conflict would drop, as Trump’s expectations for all nations in the Indo–Pacific would be clear.
“The likelihood of conflict in the western Pacific decreases significantly under Trump,” Mills said.
“Why? Because he’s showing clarity and resolve at all times. Clarity and resolve help prevent war. Lack of clarity and resolve creates war.”