The handshake between President Donald Trump and China’s leader Xi Jinping at Gimhae Air Base outside Busan on Thursday carried the weight of nations balancing precariously on the edge of a new global realignment. For approximately two hours, the leaders of the world’s two largest economies met amid South Korean surroundings designed to project stability and diplomatic progress. But for observers watching from Taipei, the elegant choreography of the summit masked a more unsettling reality: Taiwan, the self-governed island that Beijing claims as its own, has once again been thrust into the shadows of a superpower negotiation where its future autonomy hangs in the balance.
Trump emerged from the meeting declaring it “a 12 out of 10” success, announcing a cascade of agreements that painted a picture of détente. Tariffs would be reduced from 57% to 47%. China agreed to keep rare earth exports flowing through a renewable one-year arrangement. Beijing consented to resume purchasing American soybeans and to intensify efforts against the illicit fentanyl trade—a personal priority for the Trump administration. The choreography suggested a new era of pragmatic accommodation between Washington and Beijing, one that prioritized economic stability over ideological posturing.
Yet beneath this veneer of triumph lies a troubling ambiguity that has left security specialists, policymakers in Taipei, and members of Congress increasingly concerned: In pursuing a comprehensive trade resolution with China, has the Trump administration inadvertently—or deliberately—placed Taiwan on an invisible negotiating table?
The question is far from academic. Taiwan, a vibrant democracy of 23 million people perched on the frontline of Chinese territorial ambitions, depends entirely on the credibility of American security commitments. The island produces more than 60% of the world’s semiconductors and over 90% of the most advanced chips—a technological moat that has historically justified Washington’s strategic protection. Yet Trump’s approach to Taiwan throughout his second term has been characterized by calculated ambiguity rather than categorical reassurance.
In the weeks preceding the Busan summit, Trump made remarks that set alarm bells ringing in Taiwanese government circles. While boarding Air Force One en route to South Korea, he suggested that China’s Xi had assured him that an invasion of Taiwan would not occur during his presidency. More provocatively, he refused to categorically deny that Taiwan might become part of broader negotiations with Beijing, telling reporters: “We’ll be discussing numerous topics. I suspect that will be among them, but I won’t address that at this moment.”
Such language—carefully calibrated to suggest both reassurance and opening—differs markedly from the unambiguous language that American presidents have traditionally employed when discussing Taiwan. The traditional formulation emphasizes that Taiwan’s status cannot be altered by force and that the United States remains bound by the Taiwan Relations Act to provide the island with defensive capabilities. Trump’s phrasing suggested something more transactional.
In this context, Taiwan’s foreign minister Lin Chia-lung felt compelled to issue a public statement assuring Taipei’s anxious population that the island would not be “abandoned” by Washington. The very necessity of such reassurance testified to the erosion of confidence that has shadowed U.S.-Taiwan relations under Trump’s second administration. After taking office in January 2025, Trump has yet to approve any new arms sales to Taiwan—a marked departure from typical American policy that has historically seen regular military transfers to the island. Taiwan’s defense capabilities remain a central concern amid this strategic uncertainty.
“We are doing what we can to prop up our self-defense capabilities,” Taiwan’s representative to the United States, Ambassador Alexander Yui, said in recent days, a statement that reflected more resignation than optimism about American support.
The summit’s aftermath only deepened this uncertainty. When asked directly whether Taiwan had been discussed during the Busan meeting, Trump responded with a single sentence: “Taiwan never came up.” On its surface, this statement might be interpreted as reassuring—an indication that the Trump administration had not wheeled the island into a back-room negotiation. But the very need for Trump to address the question suggested just how plausible observers internationally found the prospect of such negotiations to be.
The geopolitical context rendering this scenario plausible stems from several converging factors. First, the rare earth crisis that precipitated the October summit had created genuine mutual pain for both Washington and Beijing. China controls approximately 69% of global rare earth mining, 92% of refining, and 98% of magnet manufacturing—a stranglehold that had paralyzed certain segments of American industry when Beijing began tightening export restrictions in April. By October, with China expanding controls to 12 elements and restricting the machinery needed for their processing, the American defense and technology sectors faced genuine shortages.
For Trump, this created a powerful incentive to secure a quick resolution that could demonstrate to voters that his aggressive trade stance had yielded tangible results. Xi, conversely, faced domestic pressures to prove that his negotiating posture could extract concessions from an American president who had promised confrontation. The stakes of these negotiations extended far beyond commerce, touching the very foundations of regional security architecture.
Into this void stepped the specter of Taiwan. Beijing has for decades pursued a strategy of incrementally attempting to shift the language around Taiwan in its favor. Where Washington once said it would not support Taiwanese independence, Beijing has long pressed for Washington to say it “opposes” independence—a much more forceful negation of Taiwan’s political autonomy. The question that haunted Taipei was whether Trump, eager for a trade deal victory, might cave to such demands.
Multiple sources within the U.S. foreign policy establishment indicated that China had indeed raised Taiwan as part of its negotiating agenda. The Wall Street Journal reported that Beijing was expected to seek a firmer American statement opposing Taiwanese independence. Yet Trump’s subsequent statement that Taiwan “never came up” suggests either that the issue was deliberately avoided as part of the negotiating choreography, or that Beijing withdrew the demand when faced with unified American congressional opposition.
On Capitol Hill, the prospect of Taiwan becoming collateral damage in a Trump-Xi trade deal had triggered rare bipartisan alarm. Both Democratic Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia and Republican senators expressed deep concern. “I would hope to see that the United States would not soften any commitments to Taiwan,” Kaine stated with evident worry in his voice. Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona went further, expressing concern about Trump’s foundational understanding of the Taiwan issue and its historical dimensions.
Anticipating this congressional backlash, senior Trump administration officials moved preemptively to reassure lawmakers. One official dismissed the notion that Taiwan would become a bargaining chip as “a fantasy from Washington think-tanks,” insisting that Trump’s policies would actually “strengthen” ties to the island. Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a public statement cautioning against overconfidence that Taiwan was on the negotiating table, though he notably stopped short of an absolute denial.
This studied ambiguity has become Trump’s signature approach to the Taiwan question. He simultaneously maintains that he has no interest in weakening Taiwan’s position while suggesting that Xi has assured him no invasion will occur—a formulation that evacuates Taiwan’s own agency from the strategic calculus.
The larger strategic implications extend well beyond Taiwan itself. Across East Asia, from Japan to South Korea to the Philippines, regional security architectures have been built on the assumption of American reliability in the security sphere. The precedent of the United States bargaining away a security commitment—even implicitly—could reverberate through the entire post-Cold War order.
Consider the strategic calculus from Beijing’s perspective. If Xi can achieve a concession regarding Taiwan’s political status without committing any military resources or altering his strategic posture, the benefit would be enormous. Conversely, if Xi can secure a one-year agreement on rare earths coupled with tariff reductions, the deal becomes substantially more valuable if coupled with any shift—however subtle—in American rhetorical commitment to Taiwan’s autonomy.
The “Davidson window“—the concept articulated by former Indo-Pacific commander Admiral Philip Davidson that Beijing might move on Taiwan between 2027 and 2030—looms over all these calculations. If Trump’s current rhetoric and policy ambiguity constitute an opening gambit toward a broader realignment of American commitments in Asia, the consequences could prove irreversible by the time that strategic window truly arrives.
For Taiwan, the path forward remains treacherous. The government in Taipei has announced enhanced defense spending and accelerated efforts to strengthen indigenous military capabilities. Ambassador Yui expressed confidence that if Xi calculates he cannot invade Taiwan quickly, the Chinese leader will not pursue the military option. That calculation, however, depends substantially on whether American security guarantees retain their historical credibility—or whether they have been subtly bargained away in a South Korean airport hangar in exchange for rare earth agreements and tariff reductions.
The broader implications for Trump’s trade strategy also merit scrutiny. By reducing tariffs on Chinese goods while simultaneously securing what appears to be a favorable rare earth deal, the administration may be setting a precedent that could invite further Chinese pressure on contentious geopolitical issues. Taiwan’s semiconductor dominance and national security implications make it an especially vulnerable pressure point in such negotiations.
The technical details of the rare earth agreement also warrant examination. China’s expanded rare earth export controls have created genuine shortages in American defense manufacturing, but the one-year arrangement announced in Busan provides little security for long-term planning. This arrangement’s temporary nature means the negotiating dynamics could shift dramatically when the agreement comes up for renewal, potentially creating new opportunities for Beijing to extract political concessions tied to Taiwan’s status.
Congressional oversight will prove critical in the coming months. Taiwan Relations Act legislative framework continues to bind the United States to provide Taiwan with defensive capabilities, yet the ambiguities in Trump’s recent rhetoric underscore the importance of explicit congressional reaffirmation of these commitments. Some lawmakers have already signaled their intention to press for clarity on whether Taiwan remains a cornerstone of American Indo-Pacific strategy or has become subject to broader transactional negotiations with Beijing.
As Trump prepares for a planned April visit to China and anticipates a return visit from Xi to either Florida or Washington, the true test of the Busan summit’s implications for Taiwan remains ahead. The question that will linger in Taipei’s presidential palace is whether Taiwan’s future security rests on the firm ground of American commitment, or whether it has become, in the end, just another commodity on the negotiating table—one that Trump may have strategically chosen to leave off the agenda, not out of principle, but as a bargaining chip to be deployed at a future moment when its currency might prove more valuable.
