After his Beijing summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, President Donald Trump called Taiwan a ‘place’ rather than a country, cautioned Taipei against using the word ‘independence,’ and froze U.S. arms sales to the island. The shift is the consequence of the Iran War. Tehran has now closed the Strait of Hormuz, set up a permanent toll bureaucracy charging passing ships in yuan, bitcoin, or gold, and the U.S. Navy has not forced the waterway open. If Washington cannot reopen Hormuz against Iranian anti-ship missiles and drone swarms, it cannot credibly reopen the Taiwan Strait against China’s far larger A2/AD network in the First Island Chain.
America Seems to Admit the Obvious on Taiwan
(Oct. 16, 2025) The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Paul Ignatius (DDG 117) renders honors to the USS Roosevelt (DDG 80), Oct. 16, 2025. Paul Ignatius is on a scheduled deployment in the U.S. 6th Fleet area of operations to support the warfighting effectiveness, lethality and readiness of U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa, and defend U.S., Allied and partner interests in the region. (U.S. Navy photo by Seaman Bradley Wolff)
Among the many controversial things President Donald Trump has said, one of the least controversial, in this author’s humble opinion, was Trump’s comments following the recent presidential summit in Beijing about the future of Taiwan’s defense.
Specifically, President Trump’s statement to the media on Taiwan did two things: it refused to define Taiwan as a country (the president instead called it a “place”), and he cautioned Taiwanese leaders not to so much as utter the word “independence,” lest it evoke the ire of Beijing.
Indeed, the forty-seventh American president, whose first diplomatic move after winning the 2016 election was to stun Beijing by having a presidential call with the former Taiwanese president.
Those days, at least for now, seem to be over. Trump wants to cut deals with China. He now clearly views the US’s current relationship with Taiwan as an impediment to those grand plans.
Connected to those statements by Trump was the president’s decision to hold up the sale of arms to Taiwan. Taiwan’s leader immediately responded to Trump’s statement by stressing that arms purchases from the United States “are the most important deterrent” of regional conflict between Taiwan and China.
What you’re witnessing is not just Trumpian unpredictability. It’s a realization that the United States cannot possibly defend Taiwan in any real capacity from China if Beijing decides to go for broke and either blockade and/or invade the island democracy.
J-10CE Fighter. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
J-10 Fighter From China. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
J-10. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
The Iran War Changed Everything
This realization is not just born out of Trump’s insatiable need to cut deals, like some real-life version of the Harry Ellis character from Die Hard (one half expects Trump to exclaim: Xi, bubby, I’m your white knight!) Trump’s comments underscore very difficult lessons learned since the start of the Iran War.
Namely, that the United States simply cannot militarily deter its greatest rivals in regions closest to the territories of those rivals–especially when China’s robust anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) capabilities confront the US military.
Just look no further than the ongoing Strait of Hormuz crisis. One of the most important strategic chokepoints in the world, the Strait of Hormuz handled around 20 percent of the world’s oil transportation, 18 percent of the world’s natural gas flows, roughly one-third of the world’s helium supply passed through this essential waterway, as well as one-third of all the world’s fertilizers.
Despite sitting within Iran’s territorial waters, Tehran never exercised control over the Strait of Hormuz. Except for one moment in 1987, the Iranians never attempted to blockade the strait. It was open the day before the United States, at the behest of Israel, initiated the Iran War.
Now, it remains closed. This situation in the Strait of Hormuz persists, despite the president publicly threatening to annihilate the entire ancient Persian civilization. To compound the president’s problems (and America’s enduring humiliation) is the fact that the Iranian government is now setting up a permanent bureaucracy to enforce its control over the waterway by charging massive tolls to any ship passing through.
J-20 Fighter Weibo Image Screenshot
If the ships do not pay the toll (usually in either Chinese Yuan, bitcoin, or gold), they risk being seized or sunk by Iran’s sweeping anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM) and drone swarms arrayed along Iran’s coast with the Strait of Hormuz.
And the US Navy has repeatedly demonstrated its inability to forcibly reopen the Strait of Hormuz. One reason is likely because the Pentagon is keenly aware of just how serious a threat Iran’s expansive arsenal of ASBMs, drone swarms, and even hypersonic weapons poses to the safety of any US Navy warship attempting to push through the Strait or to escort ships stuck in place due to the Iranian closure.
Rather than simply admitting that the entire endeavor was a bad idea, Trump has decided to double down on failure by imposing his own (leaky) counter-blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. This decision has exacerbated the economic doom the world faces, stemming from the prolonged closure of the Strait.
But the Trump decision to impose a counterblockade of the Strait of Hormuz was an implicit acknowledgment that the US Navy could not force the Strait open more directly.
Why Taiwan Looks Increasingly Undefendable
Let’s move over to the issue at hand. Taiwan. If the United States military is unwilling to forcibly reopen the blockaded Strait of Hormuz, then it is unlikely that the Americans would risk reopening a blockaded Taiwan Strait. There’s been much discussion about the prospects of China blockading the Taiwan Strait in the event of a geopolitical crisis erupting between the United States and China over Taiwan’s future.
Considering that more than 90 percent of the world’s critical semiconductor supplies are made in Taiwan and, therefore, must flow through the Taiwan Strait, the prospect that the Taiwan Strait might be blockaded raises the risk of total economic collapse globally. That’s because semiconductors are the small electronic wafers that essentially run the world economy. These devices make your laptop, your electric vehicle (EV), cruise missiles, and basically any piece of electronic gear work.
During the pandemic, semiconductor supply chains were disrupted. This disruption caused the price of new cars, all of which had computer chips, to spike. That price increase had direct, negative impacts on ordinary people everywhere. Should the Chinese block the Taiwan Strait, something similar–albeit worse–would occur. The blockade might also negatively impact China.
China J-20 Fighter in Beast Mode. Image Credit: X Screenshot.
It should be noted that China is rapidly catching up with the West in advanced semiconductor development.
While Beijing still lags the West in this key domain, Chinese chipmakers have made considerable headway in catching up with the United States.
In fact, the long-running US tech controls imposed during the first Trump administration, designed to hamper China’s indigenous chip manufacturing, have, according to even Jensen Huang, the CEO of NVIDIA, had the opposite intended effect. Rather than weakening China’s indigenous chip development, it is hastening the rise of a rival to the West’s chipmakers.
China Prepared for the Malacca Dilemma
How might a Chinese blockade of the Taiwan Strait, which effectively closes off the world’s primary provider of advanced semiconductors, work in favor of China’s indigenous chipmakers?
If the Chinese blockade of the Taiwan Strait persisted, even if they did not outright invade Taiwan, China’s domestic chip producers would speed up the development of their own advanced semiconductors to rival those of the West. With Western access to advanced chips cut off under a hypothetical Taiwan Strait closure, Beijing might try to replace Taiwanese-made chips with its own.
Of course, the United States could run a counter-blockade of a potential Chinese blockade of the Taiwan Strait. As Beijing’s forces block the Taiwan Strait, the US Navy could believably block the Strait of Malacca.
But the “Malacca Dilemma,” as Chinese policymakers have referred to their country’s extreme vulnerability to disruption of trade through the Strait of Malacca, has had 20 years to prepare for such a contingency. As we’ve already seen with the Strait of Hormuz closure, which was supposedly going to disproportionately harm China, any closure by the US and its allies of the Strait of Malacca would not be as destructive to China as Washington thinks.
That’s because the Chinese have had ample time to prepare for such a scenario.
Alternative trade routes have been established, such as overland energy pipelines from Russia and Central Asia, China-Myanmar oil and gas pipelines bypassing Malacca entirely, expanded rail infrastructure tied to the Belt-and-Road Initiative (BRI), China has the world’s largest strategic petroleum reserve, domestic coal dominance, Arctic shipping development, and diversified port access across the Indian Ocean.
Chinese J-20 Fighters. Image Credit: PLAAF.
Frankly, Washington’s view of the Chinese economy as fragile, export-driven, and totally dependent on seaborne trade is completely wrong. That was true in the 1990s. It is less true today.
What’s more, any US counterblockade in the Strait of Malacca (due to a possible Chinese blockade of the Taiwan Strait) would damage American allies. Such a move, as we’ve seen in the Strait of Hormuz, would spike oil prices globally, disrupt key Japanese and South Korean energy imports, hammer the economies of ASEAN states, harm global container traffic, and likely trigger a worldwide recession.
Trump is Looking for the Exit
So, Trump is looking at the Taiwan situation. He’s asking himself, after everything we have gone through (and will continue to go through) with Iran over the Strait of Hormuz, why risk something even worse from happening over Taiwan?
Trump is signaling to both Taipei and Beijing that the United States will not allow for the conditions that would make the scenario presented above of dueling blockades in the Taiwan Strait and Strait of Malacca from ever playing out. Thus, Trump is distancing the United States from Taiwan. He’s telling Taipei to drop any pretense of striking out for official independence from the Mainland.
Further, Trump is telling Xi Jinping that the United States will always value its trade relationship with China and, as such, will not risk a destabilizing regional conflict (which could escalate into a world war) over Taiwan’s status.
J-20. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
And this is because China has achieved military overmatch in the First Island Chain. It isn’t only that China could blockade the Taiwan Strait and completely implode the global economy. Even if the US military attempted to prevent either a Chinese naval blockade and/or an invasion of Taiwan militarily, US forces would struggle to successfully deploy into the First Island Chain before being severely damaged by China’s web of anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) systems sprawled throughout manmade islands, like the South China Sea (SCS).
As it stands, the current American military posture in the Indo-Pacific is entirely self-destructive. Their forward-deployed forces in airbases in places like Guam and their aircraft carriers would either be totally destroyed in the opening salvo of conflict with China or would be rendered combat-ineffective, meaning the US would be forced to sit out a war over Taiwan–all while those negative economic outcomes discussed above play out.
Of course, China will be harmed, too.
Trump’s Message to Taiwan’s DPP
But the Chinese would be fighting much nearer to their territory. And China’s increasingly self-reliant industries give it an ace in the sleeve that few in Washington appear to comprehend. Trump is aware of all this. That is why Trump is seeking an exit from the thorny Taiwan issue.
So long as Trump is president, the quest by Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) for real independence from China will never be supported by the United States government.
While that is sad for some, the fact is that Trump’s decision to de-escalate with China in the First Island Chain, given what’s going on elsewhere in the world, is likely one of the forty-seventh president’s smarter moves.
About the Author: Brandon J. Weichert
Brandon J. Weichert is a Senior National Security Editor. Recently, Weichert became the editor of the “NatSec Guy” section at Emerald. TV. He was previously the senior national security editor at The National Interest. Weichert hosts The National Security Hour on iHeartRadio, where he discusses national security policy every Wednesday at 8 p.m. Eastern. He hosts a companion show on Rumble entitled “National Security Talk.” Weichert consults regularly with various government institutions and private organizations on geopolitical issues. His writings have appeared in numerous publications, among them Popular Mechanics, National Review, MSN, and The American Spectator. And his books include Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life, and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy. Weichert’s newest book, A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine, is available for purchase at any bookstore. Follow him via Twitter/X @WeTheBrandon.
