It’s common knowledge that the possibility of a return to the White House by former U.S. President Donald Trump is sending shivers up the spines of Washington’s NATO allies. But the prospect of a second Trump presidency is also heightening anxieties among U.S. allies in Asia, which have also relied on U.S. security assurances for decades and are now wondering if they will be able to trust those promises in the years to come.
Nowhere are those concerns more urgent than in Taiwan, where officials are keeping a close eye on the war in Ukraine as a barometer of the political pressures in Washington—and a possible prelude to how the U.S. might react if China carries out its frequently threatened military move to seize the independent island it claims as its own.
Trump is not in office, but his Republican allies in Congress have already blocked a $95 billion package that contains funding for key U.S. foreign policy priorities, most of it to replenish Ukraine’s depleted weapons and ammunitions stocks. As much as the Taiwanese would also like to see the $1.9 billion tagged for their own arsenal freed up, it is the $60 billion for Ukraine that could prove more consequential in Asia’s calculations.