Summary
Taiwan’s Defense Minister Wellington Koo said the US will not abandon the Indo-Pacific, calling it a “core national interest.”
Heightened fears arose after a Trump-Zelenskyy exchange raised questions about Washington’s reliability.
Taiwan plans to boost defense spending and assist TSMC’s US expansion, partly addressing Trump’s earlier complaints.
Trump also urged Taiwan to raise its defense budget to 10% of GDP, far above its current 2.45%.
With China’s ongoing threats, Taipei sees its partnership with the US as essential for maintaining regional stability.
I guess it comes down to who is willing to pay more to install a puppet president.
Taiwan is fucked.
“Why, not even God himself could sink this ship!”
Never trust anything Trump says or signs. He signed a free trade treaty with Canada and now is putting tariffs on Canadian goods. He’s a lying scumbag and so is the little dweeb Vance.
Impossibly stupid?
Yes.
Impossible?
No.
Like, have they not been paying attention to anything the last 9 years of the last 6 weeks?
Then they are completely-foolish.
Trump couldn’t care less about the real long-term interest of the US of A: he’s smashing the US to smithereens for sake of his importance, throughout the next 8-ish years.
( no there won’t be any replacement of him through election: it’s too late for that, now:
the Dems had their chance, in 2024, & relied on their filter-bubble & their Hopium.
The opportunity’s completely gone, & Civil War Part2 will begin roughly in 2027-9, when even the deniers are forced into seeing that it’s too late, & it should last a few years )
The Republicans’ butchering civil-rights is anti-fragile: it’ll only escalate.
& as for any proof that Trump’s values couldn’t care less about the human-lives dependent on the old way?
USAID’s gutting was the intentional severing of thousands of medical lifelines.
Extrapolate those Trump-values globally, & then you’re seeing the actual Trump, Putin’s apprentice.
Please Asia do not rely on Hopium as the Democratic Party did…
Making-believing’s the most worthless “defence” there is.
_ /\ _
It’s a bit short-sighted to say that Trump is the one calling in shots here, specifically to weaken the US. It is pretty clear that he is following the plan put forward by the Heritage Foundation word by word. If I understood correctly, the idea is to make the American economy more resilient at the expense of all of its (poor) citizens. Once that is done, they can then leverage their safe zone to further influence policies in these countries. For example, get the EU to lower regulations, so American companies can extract more wealth.
Here is a quote from the actual “Project 2025 Mandate for Leadership” PDF:
Needed reforms
[…]
Increase allied conventional defense burden-sharing. U.S. allies must take far greater responsibility for their conventional defense. U.S. allies must play their part not only in dealing with China, but also in dealing with threats from Russia, Iran, and North Korea.
- Make burden-sharing a central part of U.S. defense strategy with the United States not just helping allies to step up, but strongly encouraging them to do so.
- Support greater spending and collaboration by Taiwan and allies in the Asia–Pacific like Japan and Australia to create a collective defense model.
- Transform NATO so that U.S. allies are capable of fielding the great majority of the conventional forces required to deter Russia while relying on the United States primarily for our nuclear deterrent, and select other capabilities while reducing the U.S. force posture in Europe.
- Sustain support for Israel even as America empowers Gulf partners to take responsibility for their own coastal, air, and missile defenses both individually and working collectively.
- Enable South Korea to take the lead in its conventional defense against North Korea.
[…]
They are engineering most of these situations that we’ve seen in the media specifically to make the ideas more digestible to the average population. See the Zelenskyy case: “This is going to be great television” - the guy is not even hiding it.
On one hand, Taiwan is right to say that the US won’t abandon them. However, this sort of “theatrics” is not over, and they will come up with a reason to scare Taiwan into investing a lot more in defense, specifically to prepare them in a fight to destabilize China.
It’s truly sad that this administration is now in power to push these ideas. The average American is going to become much poorer and hateful due to all protections previously put in place being dismantled. Hopefully people wake up and kick them out of office, but the damage done to foreign relationships is already done.
Lol. Putin owns Trump. Taiwan is fucked. We’re all fucked.
Oh boy. You guys are really underestimating our (US) ability to work against our own interests.
If they really believe this and they aren’t just putting up a mask for the sake of diplomacy, then they are idiots. US is ruled by a moscovite asset, and burning down Taiwan would benefit them by weakening the west.
Not only that but if you tell him that he can’t do something he’s going to think that you’re dictating things to him and it’ll increase the chances of him doing it.
There’s only one person allowed to tell him what to do.
No, it’s not impossible, unfortunately. Just look at Ukraine.
If anything building factory in the usa is what will be their downfall. Why defend Taiwan if they can make the chips in the USA?
I assure you, the factory will be too small to supply all demand, and 2 generations behind the cutting edge. And its construction will get delayed by unforeseen mishaps.
Oh you sweet summer-child.
“Impossible”
Trump: Hold my beer.
Trump: Hold my diet coke.
Sure, Jan. Taipei “[seeing] its partnership with the US as essential” means fuck-all to Trump.
Six months ago, Canadians thought the same thing. Now our entire steel industry is at risk, with significant threats to aluminum as well. Military recruitment is way up because the threat is real.
Donnie Poopypants: hold my cocaine
Trump: watch me
