What’s Next for U.S.-Taiwan Relations: US-Taiwan Business Council President on the Mission Ready Podcast

On November 6, 2024, the Mission Ready Podcast featured a lengthy interview with Council President Rupert Hammond-Chambers. The session featured a conversation on Taiwan and explored its strategic significance, defense partnerships, and the evolving geopolitical landscape of the Indo-Pacific region. It also unpacked how regional dynamics and stability operations continue to shape global security and economic cooperation. Among other things, Mr. Hammond-Chambers said:

We are going to continue to look for ways to maintain that first island chain and contain Chinese adventurism and its interest in coercion and absorption of countries like Taiwan [given] the threat that that poses to American national interest. I think it behooves us just quickly to point out that if the United States were to back off – if, as some suggest, [if] Mr. Trump’s commitment or his government’s commitment would be less than the historical commitment to Taiwan, that would have a domino effect, a ripple effect on our relationships across the region. Because if the United States wasn’t prepared to stand with Taiwan in a relationship that goes back decades and decades … then who are we prepared to stand with? That the Japanese and Koreans would quite rightly question whether or not we were going to be a reliable partner.

I think a huge hat tip to Mr. Trump in his first term, Mr. Biden in his term, and to the Trump administration to date, that our willingness to equip Taiwan with the gear that they need has significantly expanded. So, we are in a permissive environment in respect to security assistance, and the politics of support is also shifting. And how might we see that? Perhaps through the optics of training where five, six, seven years ago, it would be unimaginable that we would have Taiwan personnel – bar the the aircraft training for the F-16 program – that we’d have Taiwan battalions training … in Michigan with the National Guard and equally American forces training Taiwanese forces on Taiwan. …That’s a material engagement but it’s also a political decision. So we’ve seen the politics of it shift and then we’ve also moved into a permissive environment for material support.

The Council thanks host Chris Decker and the Mission Ready Podcast for this opportunity to participate in a lively discussion.