{"id":653,"date":"2026-05-11T19:50:47","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T19:50:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/?p=653"},"modified":"2026-05-11T19:50:47","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T19:50:47","slug":"trump-says-will-discuss-us-arms-sales-to-taiwan-with-chinas-xi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/?p=653","title":{"rendered":"Trump says will discuss US arms sales to Taiwan with China&#8217;s Xi"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said Monday he will speak to Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping about future US arms sales to Taiwan as he predicted Beijing will not seize the self-governing democracy.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Asked if the United States should keep selling weapons to Taiwan, Trump did not answer directly but said: \u201cI\u2019m going to have that discussion with President Xi.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPresident Xi would like us not to, and I\u2019ll have that discussion. That\u2019s one of the many things I\u2019ll be talking about,\u201d Trump told reporters ahead of his trip to Beijing this week.<\/p>\n<p>The United States recognizes only Beijing but under domestic law is required to provide weapons to Taiwan so that it can defend itself.<\/p>\n<p>Under the 1982 \u201cSix Assurances,\u201d a key foundation of US policy on Taiwan after the switch of recognition, the United States said that it would not \u201cconsult\u201d with Beijing about arms sales to the island.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Also read: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.brecorder.com\/news\/40412572\/taiwan-says-delayed-us-f-16s-to-start-arriving-this-year\">Taiwan says delayed US F-16s to start arriving this year<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Trump appeared to downplay the prospect of China trying to seize Taiwan by taking advantage of the US military\u2019s preoccupation and dwindling munitions after the United States joined Israel in attacking Iran.<\/p>\n<p>Trump, after referencing Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine, said of Taiwan, \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019ll happen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think we\u2019ll be fine. I have a very good relationship with President Xi. He knows I don\u2019t want that to happen,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>But Trump also noted that the United States was \u201cvery, very far away\u201d from Taiwan while he said of Xi, \u201cHe\u2019s 67 miles.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a little bit of a difference. But, you know, there\u2019s a lot of support for Taiwan, from Japan and from countries from that area,\u201d Trump said, referring to the increasingly robust support for Taipei from Japan\u2019s conservative government.<\/p>\n<p>The Taiwanese-controlled Kinmen archipelago lies just two kilometers (1.2 miles) off China\u2019s coast although mainland Taiwan is around 160 kilometers (100 miles) from mainland China.<\/p>\n<p>Trump also said he would ask Xi again to free Jimmy Lai, the Hong Kong pro-democracy media mogul who was sentenced in February to 20 years in prison, effectively a death sentence for the ailing 78-year-old.<\/p>\n<p>Trump, however, also appeared to show understanding for the position of China, which clamped down hard on Hong Kong after mass pro-democracy protests in 2019 in the former British colony.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe caused lots of turmoil for China,\u201d Trump said of Lai.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe tried to do the right thing. He wasn\u2019t successful, went to jail, and people would like him out,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019d like to see him get out, too. So I\u2019ll bring him up again.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lai\u2019s cause has been embraced by an unusually broad spectrum in the United States including media rights advocates and conservative Christians drawn to Lai due to his devout Catholicism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said Monday he will speak to Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping about future US arms sales to Taiwan as he predicted Beijing will not seize the self-governing democracy. Asked if the United States should keep selling weapons to Taiwan, Trump did not answer directly but said: \u201cI\u2019m going to have that discussion [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":654,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailypakistannews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}