For Waltz, advising isolationist Donald Trump is Taiwan-sized challenge

And in an interview with Bloomberg News last year, Waltz, 50, argued that the biggest deterrent for Xi Jinping would be for the US and its allies to clearly state that they would come to island's aid

By Jenny Leonard 

During a trip to Taiwan last year, Florida congressman Mike Waltz stressed the US needed to embrace “strategic clarity” and spell out to China that an invasion of the island would be met with a strong US response. 

Now that he’s president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming national security advisor, Waltz is beginning to see the value in ambiguity.

 

After more than 24 years in the Army, Waltz built his reputation in Washington as a China hawk, working on a House task force to coordinate policy toward Beijing. He introduced bills to prevent federal retirement funds from being invested in China’s military, decrease US dependence on critical minerals from China, and make the protection of Taiwan a specific goal for the US military.

 

And in an interview with Bloomberg News last year, Waltz, 50, argued that the biggest deterrent for Chinese President Xi Jinping would be for the US and its allies to clearly state that they would come to the island’s aid.

 

“I really think increasingly we need to move from strategic ambiguity to strategic clarity,” Waltz said in an April 2023 interview in Seoul. “If we don’t come to the aid of Taiwan, what does that then mean to Japan, South Korea and the Philippines? It means they start questioning their alliance with us and our commitment to them — and therefore, what I think it ultimately will mean is a nuclear Japan and a nuclear South Korea, because they will have to take matters into their own hands.”

 

There’s just one problem. Waltz’s new boss swept back to the White House as voters embraced his America First-branded approach to foreign policy, prioritizing domestic manufacturing and avoiding foreign entanglements. 

 

That’s bad news for Taiwan, the self-governed island that has long been the biggest flashpoint between the world’s two superpowers, and home to massive semiconductor manufacturing facilities that Trump and Democrats alike are eager to return to US shores.

 

Now, Waltz faces the unenviable task of reconciling his views with that of his boss — under the watchful eye of an Indo-Pacific that has been shaken in recent years as Beijing sought to project its military might and test the US’s resolve with increased drills around the self-governed island.

 

A spokesperson for Waltz said in a statement that “President Trump will keep all options on the table in the Indo-Pacific and Rep. Waltz will carry out the policies that are in line with the president’s agenda.”

 

That comment is a notable departure from Waltz’s remarks during the congressional delegation trip to Taiwan, South Korea and Japan last year, when he stressed the importance of arming Taiwan more rapidly and selling the American people on the significance of defending it.

 

‘Race against time’ 

“I feel like we’re in a race against time,” he told Bloomberg last year. “The intelligence community is blinking red, yet the bureaucracy within our national security community is kind of plodding along.”

 

Implicit in the tonal shift is an acknowledgment that Trump — who has described Taiwan as “the apple of President Xi’s eye” — largely sees the island as a mooch that stole a key industry while relying on the US for security.

 

“They did take about 100 per cent of our chip business,” Trump said in a late June interview with Bloomberg. “Taiwan should pay us for defence. You know, we’re no different than an insurance company. Taiwan doesn’t give us anything.”

 

Trump’s comments spurred a frenzy in Taipei, where officials sought to clarify their intentions and the administration of President Lai Ching-te has since discussed ways to appease the incoming US president through weapons and energy purchases they plan to announce when Trump takes office, according to people familiar with the matter.

 

But Waltz’s tight-rope act has already begun. Last week, he met with Taiwanese officials at an event in Washington. People familiar with the conversation stressed that it was an informal gathering that wasn’t organised through the transition and that they did not have an in-depth policy discussion.

 

Still, one person familiar with the conversation expressed confidence that Waltz would maintain his pro-Taiwan stance and that Washington and Taipei will have open channels of dialogue on security cooperation.

 

The Taiwanese delegation included Lin Fei-fan and Hsu Szu-chien of Taiwan’s National Security Council, and Vincent Chao, who used to run the political division at the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the US, the de facto embassy, people familiar with the matter said.

 

A spokesperson for the Taiwan representative’s office in Washington said that exchanges by national security teams from both sides are a routine part of their responsibilities and declined to comment further on their conversation.

 

One China policy 

Central to the brewing policy debate is whether to alter the so-called One China policy and the Taiwan Relations Act, which for decades have governed the US-Taiwan relationship by leaving ambiguous whether the US would come to Taiwan’s defence in the event of an invasion. China has said it wants to reunify the island with the mainland and Xi has not ruled out the use of force, if necessary.

 

President Joe Biden shook that equilibrium when he said more than once he would defend the island militarily if China invaded. 

 

Trump told the Wall Street Journal editorial board in October that he’d handle the issue by telling Xi he would impose 150 per cent-200 per cent tariffs on China if he went into Taiwan.

 

And when asked if he would use military force against a blockade of the island, he answered: “I wouldn’t have to, because he respects me and he knows I’m f— crazy.”

 

A person familiar with Waltz’s current thinking said he, too, now believes that it likely wouldn’t even come to a military confrontation because the US and China would hash it out through economic competition.

 

Zack Cooper, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said the tension boils down to Trump prizing unpredictability because it can increase leverage, while the US Congress — particularly Republicans — have traditionally favored predictability with Taiwan.

 

“Incoming administration officials coming from the Congress will have to adjudicate between President-elect Trump’s preference for unpredictability and their past statements favoring clear support for Taiwan,” he added.