The last time Foreign Policy sat down with Alexander Tah-ray Yui, he was just months into his new role as the de facto Taiwanese ambassador to Washington—officially known as Taiwan’s representative to the United States—with less than a year left in U.S. President Joe Biden’s term. Biden said on multiple occasions that the U.S. military would defend the island in the event of an attack from China, seemingly straying from a long-standing U.S. policy of “strategic ambiguity” toward Taiwan (though Biden administration officials repeatedly stressed that the policy hadn’t changed). He also signed off on more than a dozen weapons sales to Taiwan during his four years in office.
On Friday, Yui sat down again with Foreign Policy—in a rather different context. Eight months into President Donald Trump’s second term, the White House’s attitude toward Taiwan has been somewhat more ambivalent in both words and actions. Trump denied a request for Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te to transit through New York this year, and the Trump administration canceled a planned meeting in Washington with Taiwan’s defense minister in June.
The last time Foreign Policy sat down with Alexander Tah-ray Yui, he was just months into his new role as the de facto Taiwanese ambassador to Washington—officially known as Taiwan’s representative to the United States—with less than a year left in U.S. President Joe Biden’s term. Biden said on multiple occasions that the U.S. military would defend the island in the event of an attack from China, seemingly straying from a long-standing U.S. policy of “strategic ambiguity” toward Taiwan (though Biden administration officials repeatedly stressed that the policy hadn’t changed). He also signed off on more than a dozen weapons sales to Taiwan during his four years in office.
On Friday, Yui sat down again with Foreign Policy—in a rather different context. Eight months into President Donald Trump’s second term, the White House’s attitude toward Taiwan has been somewhat more ambivalent in both words and actions. Trump denied a request for Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te to transit through New York this year, and the Trump administration canceled a planned meeting in Washington with Taiwan’s defense minister in June.
And on Thursday, the Washington Post reported that Trump had declined to approve $400 million in military aid to Taiwan in recent months as he seeks a trade deal with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Yui’s Friday interview took place even as Trump and Xi were engaging in a high-profile phone call to discuss those trade negotiations, which Trump subsequently described as “very productive.” He also committed to visiting China next year.
Yui described it as “a good thing that the two sides are talking,” but he added that “Taiwan puts a very big eye on” these negotiations “to make sure Taiwan’s issues are not for trade or for barter.”
Neither Beijing’s nor Washington’s immediate readouts on the call mentioned Taiwan, but China has stepped up its pressure on the island in recent years through both diplomatic statements and military provocations. Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun said at a security forum in Beijing on Thursday that China’s takeover of Taiwan—a self-governing democracy that Beijing treats as a breakaway province—is “an integral part of the post-war international order.”
Yui takes the threat of China seriously but downplayed suggestions that Taiwan would have to face it without U.S. support under Trump. “I can reassure you that U.S.-Taiwan bilateral ongoings are pretty close, very tight, and our communications are ongoing,” he said, adding that the fundamental U.S. policy position on Taiwan hadn’t changed. The meeting between U.S. and Taiwanese defense officials that was canceled, he said, “happened later on in another place.”
I also wanted to know what lessons, if any, the Taiwanese envoy to Washington had derived from Trump’s efforts to mediate the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. “They’re already at war or in armed conflict—we’re not. So we want to make sure that it stays that way,” Yui said. “What I see is the United States is really serious in trying to bring an end to those conflicts. … There are different approaches in how to do it—and who am I to judge?—but it’s comforting to see that the United States is really working to reach peace.”
A potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, Yui warned, would have far wider global implications. “Over half of world trade passes through the Taiwan Strait, not to mention the manufacturing of Taiwan’s semiconductors,” he said. “It’s not just us—if there’s a conflict, the Chinese ports will be sealed, ours will be sealed, the Japanese, the Koreans’. World trade will basically be put to a halt.”
Taiwan is also taking steps to mollify Trump and give him the big numbers he likes to tout. Lai’s government has committed to increasing Taiwan’s defense spending to at least 3 percent of its GDP by next year (though Trump and other administration officials have demanded 10 percent). “If we count defense expenditure in terms of NATO standards, we’ll have passed 5 percent easily next year,” Yui said, referring to NATO members’ new spending target, agreed on in June, that includes 3.5 percent in defense spending and 1.5 percent in defense-related infrastructure.
Part of the problem, Yui said, is how long U.S. weapons deliveries tend to take, which exacerbates increasingly contentious domestic debates in Taiwan on how to spend the money. He cites the example of Taiwan’s 108 new Abrams M1A2T tanks, which have been only partially delivered in two batches over the past year despite the purchase being agreed during Trump’s first term in 2019. “We can spend whatever we need on defense, but the problem is if we don’t get it,” he said. “We’re not blaming anyone. It’s just been slow.”
The $400 million in aid Trump reportedly blocked comes from a provision known as the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA), which expedites the transfer of U.S. weapons to foreign partners. “It’s not about the money itself,” Yui said. “Through PDA, the United States can access that equipment immediately and make it available to Taiwan fairly quickly.” He also highlighted the White House statement to the Post that a decision on that aid package had not been finalized.
The island’s expanded commitments to the United States go beyond defense. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), the island’s crown jewel and which produces most of the world’s advanced computing chips, was already a champion of Biden’s CHIPS and Science Act but has pledged an additional $100 billion investment in its U.S. manufacturing during Trump’s second term, bringing its total investment to $165 billion.
It’s all part of Taiwan’s messaging to ensure it does not get—in Yui’s words—“thrown under the bus” or used as a bargaining chip in negotiations between Washington and Beijing. The global push for artificial intelligence and the resulting demand for semiconductor chips to power AI applications are many orders above what Taiwan can produce.
“We’re already making 90 percent, almost all of it, in Taiwan, but Taiwan is the size of Maryland,” Yui said. “There’s a big need for semiconductor manufacturing growth, but let’s make sure that supply chain stays within democracies,” he added. “We’re better bound together, and if there’s a conflict in Taiwan—hopefully not—I think people in the United States will be more concerned because that will be U.S. jobs at stake if TSMC is taken over by the Chinese.”
That message of Taiwan’s global value and utility is what Yui also plans to take to New York next week during the United Nations General Assembly’s high-level gathering. Although Taiwan is not recognized by the United Nations and its diplomats are not allowed into the U.N. headquarters (Beijing was granted the sole Chinese seat in 1971, leading to Taiwan’s expulsion from the body), Yui said he plans to attend meetings and events elsewhere in the city.
“I’ll be in New York next week,” he said, joking that his engagements will be akin to standing with a megaphone outside the U.N. asking to be let in and describing it as the island’s “yearly quest” to be recognized globally. It’s the same message he shares with Trump and Washington.
“We’re not a freeloader,” he said. “We’re not here to take advantage of what you have, but we are actually willing to join and contribute. So we’re an asset, not a liability.”
