Cancelling President Lai’s Transit Is a Mistake That Will Embolden China
According to reports, the Trump administration has cancelled Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te’s planned transit through New York, which he would have made before visiting three of Taiwan’s remaining diplomatic partners in Latin America and the Caribbean. Initial reporting indicates the Trump administration made this decision to remove any potential impediments to a bilateral trade deal and pave the way for a meeting between President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping. If true, such a move sends a dangerous signal to China and risks undermining deterrence in the Taiwan Strait.
In Transit
Allowing Taiwan’s presidents to “transit” through the United States on their way to and from the island’s diplomatic partners (those countries that still maintain diplomatic relations with the Republic of China, as Taiwan is formally known) has been a mainstay of U.S.-Taiwan relations for decades. Taiwan’s first presidential transit of the United States occurred in 1994, when President Lee Teng-hui briefly stopped in Hawaii on his way to Central America. Since then, all of Taiwan’s democratically elected presidents have made transit stops in the United States. Most recently, President Lai transited through Hawaii and Guam in December 2024.
Transits serve both a practical and symbolic purpose. They enable refueling of Taiwan’s president’s plane, which is often necessary to reach the island’s diplomatic partners. On a more substantive level, transits enable Taiwan’s president to meet with Taiwan’s sizeable overseas community in the United States, visit sites of significant Taiwanese investment, and speak to U.S. officials who are either not permitted to travel to Taiwan or would otherwise not do so. Finally, transits are a visible demonstration of the strength of U.S.-Taiwan ties and the U.S. commitment to Taiwan.
The Danger of Negotiating Everything
Since the 1990s, dozens of transits have occurred without incident, and they have been treated as a routine aspect of U.S.-Taiwan relations. To be sure, Washington and Taipei always negotiate the modalities of transits – when and where they occur, how long Taiwan’s president stays in the United States, and what his or her public engagements are to be – but they do so bilaterally, in a process that Beijing does not influence.
Cancelling a transit at China’s request, though, is unprecedented, dangerous, and potentially destabilizing. Such a decision would confirm Beijing’s assessment that President Trump wants a trade deal and a meeting with Xi above all else, and that he would be willing to bargain away other interests to secure both. Having successfully prevented a transit, Beijing can now be expected to push the Trump administration to change America’s declaratory policy on Taiwan, alter its position on Taiwan’s legal status, or even curtail security cooperation with Taiwan. By demonstrating that transits are negotiable, the Trump administration has signaled to China that other elements of the U.S.-Taiwan relationship may also be up for discussion, thus incentivizing China to test this proposition.
The cancelation of President Lai’s transit, occurring immediately after a major setback for his Democratic Progressive Party in the recall campaign that gripped the island’s politics for months and just before tariffs are imposed on Taiwan, will further weaken his political standing. It will also fuel “America skepticism theory,” or the notion among Taiwanese that the United States is an unreliable partner that may sell the island out to China. These dynamics will combine to make it much harder for Lai to raise the defense budget and implement other much-needed defense reforms – steps that the Trump administration has been urging Taiwan to take. Canceling this transit thus undercuts critical priorities in the bilateral relationship.
Limiting the Damage
The cancellation of President Lai’s transit, paired with the Trump administration’s decision to allow Nvidia to sell its H20 inference chip to Chinese customers and to freeze planned export controls, suggests that the administration is pausing any actions that China may find offensive in favor of setting the table for a meeting between Trump and Xi. It also sends a worrying signal that during such a meeting Trump may be willing to discuss other elements of U.S.-Taiwan relations and bargain them away in exchange for concessions on trade.
The reverberations of this decision will also be felt in Tokyo, Canberra, and Manila. Just weeks ago, it was reported that the United States was asking Japan and Australia to clarify how they would respond if the United States went to war with China over Taiwan. Amidst signals that the United States is unsure of its commitment to Taiwan, these allies will be far less likely to take politically difficult steps to prepare for such contingencies.
To counteract this perception, the United States should quickly reschedule President Lai’s transit, demonstrating that this is just a postponement. It should clearly communicate its abiding interest in cross-Strait peace and stability, its commitment to bolster Taiwan’s self-defense capabilities, and its resolve to intervene if deterrence fails. This can and should include U.S. Navy transits through the Taiwan Strait, the sale of weapons to Taiwan, an increase in U.S.-Taiwan security cooperation, and a continued shift of relevant U.S. military assets to the Indo-Pacific. In addition, a senior official should publicly outline the Trump administration’s policy toward Taiwan. Absent such steps, China will see an opportunity to continue to erode Taiwan’s confidence in the United States and to test the U.S. commitment to Taiwan.
