Both during and after Chinese President Xi Jinping's recent state visit to Washington, and despite last week's visit to the US by Taiwan's Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung and its former president, Tsai Ing-wen, public discourse in the US about Taiwan’s security has grown quiet.

Since the current US administration has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to discard long-held diplomatic norms for immediate political objectives, a fundamental question remains: is the US still willing to defend Taiwan?

Taiwan is a democratic island nation that sits across the Taiwan Strait from mainland China. It is also a de facto sovereign nation that the leaders of the People's Republic of China claim is a break-away province. They have been forthright about their desire to annex Taiwan, and have never renounced the potential use of force to achieve this aim if necessary.

In response, the US has relied on the doctrine of "strategic ambiguity" as a work-around for this tension since 1979. That's when Congress passed a law requiring the US to maintain unofficial diplomatic relations with Taiwan, while at the same time formally recognizing the PRC.

Under this framework, Washington deters an unprovoked PRC invasion of Taiwan by hinting at US military intervention, while simultaneously discouraging a unilateral Taiwanese declaration of independence, which the PRC would view as provocative, by withholding an absolute guarantee of US intervention.

While this policy of ambiguity has been effective overall, it has suffered from institutional inconsistency. In 2001, President George W. Bush declared a firm commitment to defend the island China, prompting public criticism from then-Senator Joe Biden, who warned against "obligating ourselves, a priori, to come to the defense of Taiwan."

Though President Biden later made similar unambiguous defense commitments in 2022, the current administration has since walked those statements back, returning to a fluid interpretation of strategic ambiguity.

Trump's National Security Strategy, issued in November 2025, explicitly designates the PRC as the primary focus of US foreign policy, noting that "deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority."

To that end, since January 2025, the US has restricted trade parameters with China, secured supply chains for critical rare earth minerals outside Chinese control, expanded military access in the Philippines, and redeployed European-based forces to the Far East.

And although this administration extracted a staggering $250 billion Taiwanese investment in US semiconductor manufacturing, it also authorized an $11.1 billion weapons package for Taiwan in December 2025.

But this strategic focus seems to have been short-lived.

The prolonged confrontation with Iran combined with the US's operational demands in Venezuela have severely distracted the US State Department. By choosing to prioritize the Middle Eastern theater, Washington has inadvertently signaled a dangerous lack of follow-through on its commitments in East Asia.

This distraction directly undermines the delicate cross-strait status quo between the two Chinas.

Beijing has capitalized on this erratic signaling. Recognizing that direct military amphibious assault is highly risky, the PRC has scaled up "grey-zone warfare," hostile actions falling just short of open military conflict. Chinese forces now routinely enforce its own maritime laws on international vessels approaching Taiwan, threaten critical submarine cables, and violate Taiwanese airspace to exhaust the island's defense fighters. This physical harassment is paired with aggressive cognitive and espionage campaigns designed to erode Taiwanese public resolve.

Concurrently, Beijing has intensified its direct diplomatic demands on Washington. The PRC is pushing the US to alter its official language from "not supporting" independence for Taiwan to actively "opposing" it.

Furthermore, Beijing demands US backing for a "peaceful reunification," a mandate that bypasses the core tenet of current US policy that any resolution about Taiwan must have the democratic assent of the Taiwanese people.

Beijing also has pressured the US to have a high-level meeting with the pro-reunification faction in Taiwan, a symbolic slap to the current government in the Taiwanese capital of Taipei. This while also demanding the US veto any future arms sales to the island nation. Transactional shifts in Washington may have already resulted in unexpected delays of weapons deliveries that Taiwan has legally purchased.

Compounding this policy drift is the diminishing influence of traditional Congressional hawks. While Secretary of State Marco Rubio has tried to steer US policy toward ironclad support for Taipei, his leverage has weakened against an increasingly transactional executive branch.

Faced with an ambiguous grey-zone crisis, Washington appears highly susceptible to a grand bargain. If a concession on Taiwan's security could secure a superficial diplomatic victory for the Trump administration, 50 years of delicately balanced foreign policy may come to an end.

Jose E. Mora, PhD, is an adjunct professor of Latin American Studies in the Department of Peace and Social Justice at Berea College. He is the former Professor and Chair of Global Affairs of the American University of Phnom Penh in Cambodia.