The Determination

The Taiwan Relations Act says "will make available." The Six Assurances say "no prior consultations with the PRC." On Air Force One, the president said he is talking to Xi about it.

geopolitics

“I’m talking to him about it. We had a good conversation, and we’ll make a determination pretty soon.”

That was Donald Trump on Air Force One, February 17, 2026. A reporter had asked about Xi Jinping’s opposition to American arms sales to Taiwan. “Him” was Xi. “It” was whether the United States would fulfill a statutory obligation that has been federal law since April 10, 1979.

The Taiwan Relations Act, Section 3(a):

The United States will make available to Taiwan such defense articles and defense services in such quantity as may be necessary to enable Taiwan to maintain a sufficient self-defense capability.

Section 3(b) adds a constraint: the nature and quantity of those articles shall be determined “based solely upon their judgment of the needs of Taiwan.”

Based solely. Not based on a summit’s diplomatic requirements. Not based on a conversation with the government the arms are designed to deter. Based solely upon Taiwan’s needs.

Thirteen days earlier, on February 4, Xi had told Trump on a phone call that Taiwan was “the most important and sensitive core issue” in US-China relations and urged Washington to handle arms sales “with the utmost caution.” On February 17, the president told reporters he was doing exactly that.

The White House corrected the next day: “There is no change to our policy with respect to Taiwan.”

The clarification addressed the legal question. It could not address the signal.

The assurances

In August 1982, the United States and the People’s Republic of China signed the Third Joint Communique. It appeared to commit Washington to gradually reducing arms sales to Taiwan — both in quality and quantity. For Taipei, the language read like a timeline toward abandonment.

Reagan’s response was six private commitments, delivered through diplomatic channels. They became known as the Six Assurances:

The United States has not agreed to set a date for ending arms sales to Taiwan. Has not agreed to hold prior consultations with the People’s Republic regarding arms sales to Taiwan. Has not agreed to play any mediation role between Taipei and Beijing. Has not agreed to revise the Taiwan Relations Act. Has not altered its position regarding sovereignty over Taiwan. Will not exert pressure on Taiwan to enter negotiations with the People’s Republic.

Six sentences. None of them became law.

They were executive commitments — promises from one president, honored by every president after him. Not because any statute compelled it. Because the commitments served the strategic architecture: ambiguity toward Beijing about what the US would ultimately do, certainty toward Taipei that the US would arm it regardless of Beijing’s objections.

For forty-four years, every president maintained the assurances. The gap between what was law (the TRA’s mandate) and what was promise (the Six Assurances) never mattered, because no one tested it.

“I’m talking to him about it” is the test.

The second assurance — no prior consultations with the PRC regarding arms sales — is a presidential promise, not a statute. A president announcing on camera that he is discussing arms sales with Beijing violates the assurance. The violation has no legal consequence. The assurance was never law. It was a promise. And promises depend on the person making them.

Representative Ro Khanna, Ranking Member of the House Select Committee on the CCP, called the February 17 statement “alarming and a blatant violation of U.S. policy and the Six Assurances,” adding that Trump treats Taiwan as “a bargaining chip.”

Senator Andy Kim warned that “once non-negotiable commitments to Taiwan are now in doubt.”

The package

In January 2026, the State Department prepared a new arms package for Taiwan worth approximately $13 billion. Patriot PAC-3 MSE interceptor missiles — the system specifically designed to counter the ballistic missiles China has aimed across the Strait. NASAMS air defense. Anti-drone equipment. The package was sent to senior lawmakers in both chambers for the standard informal review. Bipartisan clearance was given.

The White House then ordered agencies not to move forward.

The reason: Trump planned to visit Beijing in late March. Formally notifying Congress of a $13 billion Patriot package would antagonize Xi before the summit.

This is not unprecedented. Previous presidents delayed arms notifications. Bush held up F-16 sales. Obama slowed certain packages. The difference is not the delay. It is the declared reason. Previous administrations maintained the diplomatic fiction that delays were administrative — bureaucratic timing, interagency process, technical review. Trump announced he was consulting Xi. The signal was that the statutory mandate is functionally conditional on presidential diplomacy with the adversary.

Section 3(b): “based solely upon their judgment of the needs of Taiwan.”

The $13 billion package was held based on the needs of the summit.

Patriot PAC-3 MSE interceptors are what Taiwan requires against ballistic missile attack — the opening phase of any Chinese coercive scenario. The total US arms sale backlog to Taiwan now stands at $32 billion. The gap between what has been promised and what has been delivered is not administrative. It is structural.

The fix

On May 15, 2025, Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi introduced HR 3452: the Six Assurances to Taiwan Act. Senator John Curtis introduced the Senate companion, S. 3208, in November. Bipartisan cosponsors: Young Kim, Zach Nunn, Nicole Malliotakis on the House side. Jeff Merkley on the Senate side.

The bill does one thing: it would make the Six Assurances federal law.

Before suspending arms sales, before consulting Beijing about what to sell Taiwan, before mediating sovereignty discussions, before pressuring Taiwan to negotiate — the president would have to notify Congress. Congress would have up to sixty days to pass a joint resolution of disapproval.

Curtis: “No administration can back away from this commitment behind closed doors.” Merkley: “Our bipartisan bill codifies a cornerstone of U.S. policy toward Taiwan — ensuring no administration can back away from this commitment behind closed doors.”

The bill’s introduction is itself evidence. Congress is proposing to lock a door that was supposed to be locked already. The legislation exists because the gap exists — because a president demonstrated that the assurances are not self-enforcing, and the TRA’s mandatory language does not, by itself, prevent a president from conditioning its implementation on a bilateral summit.

Shelley Rigger of Brookings observes that the bill is not purely a restoration of the status quo. It introduces a congressional review mechanism that shifts the executive-legislative balance on Taiwan policy. The Six Assurances were originally executive commitments precisely because both sides wanted flexibility. Codifying them changes the architecture — and that change carries consequences beyond the president it was designed to constrain.

The honest trade-off: flexibility enabled the assurances to function for forty-four years. The same flexibility now enables their violation. The bill would close the gap, but at the cost of the ambiguity that made the gap tolerable.

GovTrack gives HR 3452 a ten percent chance of getting past committee. Four percent of becoming law.

The signal

Deterrence is a function of perceived commitment, not legal architecture. Beijing does not plan cross-strait operations based on its reading of the US Code. It plans based on its assessment of what the United States would actually do.

The TRA’s value was never that it compelled a specific president to act. Presidents retain broad discretion over timing, composition, and scale of arms deliveries under the statute. The Act’s value was that it established an unconditional policy foundation — “will make available” — on which the Six Assurances built a specific posture: no consulting Beijing, no setting end dates, no mediating sovereignty.

The unconditional quality of the commitment is what makes Chinese military planning costly. If Beijing assumes the US will arm Taiwan regardless of diplomatic conditions, the cost-benefit calculation for coercion shifts toward restraint. If Beijing has reason to believe the commitment is conditional — conditional on a summit, on a presidential relationship, on a “determination” to be made “pretty soon” — the calculation shifts the other way.

Trump did not suspend arms sales. He did not repeal the TRA. He did not formally withdraw the Six Assurances. He said he was talking to Xi about it.

That sentence degrades the deterrent more efficiently than any legal action could, because the deterrent was never about the law. It was about the perception that the law’s mandate would be honored unconditionally.

And the degradation does not arrive alone. The Iran war, now in its eleventh day, has consumed thousands of precision munitions from the same production lines that supply Patriot interceptors and other air defense systems. Replenishment timelines are measured in years, not months. The physical capability to implement the TRA’s mandate is being consumed in one theater while the political commitment to honor it is being eroded in another.

The silence

Taiwan’s response to the February 17 statement was careful to the point of absence.

President Lai Ching-te, speaking on February 5 after an earlier Xi-Trump phone call, called the relationship “rock-solid.” After the Air Force One statement twelve days later — the explicit acknowledgment that the US was consulting the adversary about the commitment — Taipei did not publicly challenge the president.

The asymmetry explains the silence. Taiwan cannot afford to antagonize the person whose commitment it depends on. The island that needs the assurance cannot demand it. The demand itself would signal to Beijing that the assurance is in doubt — which is precisely the perception Taiwan’s deterrence requires it to prevent. The ally is structurally prohibited from naming the violation.

The Taiwan Relations Act was passed in 1979 because Congress did not trust the executive to maintain Taiwan’s defense commitment after Carter derecognized Taipei. The statute was designed as a constraint on presidential discretion. The Six Assurances were added in 1982 as a second layer of constraint — but one that was executive, not legislative. For forty-four years, the double architecture held. Not because it was legally impervious. Because every president treated the executive layer as binding.

HR 3452 is Congress discovering that the executive layer was never a constraint at all. It was an assurance. And assurances, by definition, depend on the person giving them.

The statute says “will.” The president says he’ll make a determination pretty soon. Between those two words is the gap that forty-four years of deterrence depended on no one exploiting.

The determination has not yet been made.

Sources

- Solen