Taiwan-U.S. ties are ‘rock solid,’ its president says, after Xi warns Trump on arms sales

HONG KONG — Taiwan’s president said its relations with the United States are “rock solid” on Thursday, after Chinese President Xi Jinping stressed his country’s territorial claims to the island in a call with President Donald Trump.

According to a Chinese readout from the wide-ranging call on Wednesday, Xi also warned Trump over U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, suggesting that the self-governing democracy could become a more prominent issue in U.S.-China relations after spending months in the background.

Like most countries, the U.S. has no formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan, which Beijing has vowed to bring under its control by force if necessary. But the U.S. is Taiwan’s most important international backer and is legally bound to supply it with defensive weapons.

“Taiwan–U.S. relations are rock-solid and our various cooperation projects will continue without change,” Taiwan President Lai Ching-te told reporters, adding that U.S. commitments to Taiwan had not changed.

Though long a source of friction in U.S.-China relations, Taiwan has not been high on the agenda since Trump returned to office as the world’s two biggest economies engaged in a trade war.

The Trump-Xi call suggests those days “are perhaps over,” said Lev Nachman, a professor of political science at National Taiwan University.

Taiwan is now likely to be a central topic of discussion when Trump visits Xi in China this April, he said.

“I think Taiwan needs to be prepared,” said Nachman, who is based in Taipei. “There’s going to be more language and rhetoric on Taiwan coming from both the U.S. and China in 2026.”

In December, the U.S. announced its largest-ever arms sale package to Taiwan, with a value of more than $11.1 billion. China opposes such sales, and Xi told Trump on Wednesday that the U.S. must handle them with “prudence.”

According to a Chinese government readout of the call, Xi emphasized that Taiwan is the most important issue in U.S.-China relations, and that China “will never allow Taiwan to be separated.”

Trump said in a social media post that he had an “excellent” call with Xi that was “long and thorough.” He said they discussed trade, Taiwan, the Russia-Ukraine war, the situation in Iran, and Chinese purchases of U.S. oil, gas and agricultural products, among other issues, “all very positive.”

“The relationship with China, and my personal relationship with President Xi, is an extremely good one, and we both realize how important it is to keep it that way,” Trump said.

It was the first public contact between Trump and Xi since their last phone call in late November. Trump did not mention Taiwan in his description of the November call.

The two leaders also held an in-person meeting last October on the sidelines of a regional summit in South Korea, where they agreed to a one-year trade truce. Trump told reporters after that meeting that Taiwan “never came up” and “was not discussed.”

Even if the focus of U.S.-China relations is shifting, that doesn’t mean that Taiwan, the main producer of advanced semiconductor chips that are integral to modern life, needs to be “in panic mode,” Nachman said.

“I think Trump is keenly aware of how important Taiwan is to the United States’ current economic growth, and I don’t think he would do anything to put that in jeopardy,” he said.

It’s also encouraging that Trump and Xi are having “open communication” about Taiwan, Nachman said.

“At the very least, this should hopefully minimize misunderstandings and misinterpretations that happen from from a lack of speaking to each other,” he said.