Doubts about U.S. credibility are making arms purchases harder to sustain.
F-16s purchased from the U.S. in service with Taiwan’s air force, Sep. 30, 2011.
In December 2025, the United States announced an $11 billion arms package for Taiwan. Yet months later, Taiwan’s legislature remains mired in debate over a supplemental defense budget. In Washington, the delay has often been read as evidence that Taiwan is not sufficiently serious about its own defense. But such an interpretation oversimplifies the politics of procurement in Taiwan and, more importantly, misidentifies the source of the problem. The central constraint is not a lack of awareness of the China threat, nor a decline in willingness to defend Taiwan. It is growing doubt about whether the United States would in fact stand by Taiwan in a crisis.
Our January 2026 American Portrait Survey suggests that Taiwanese public opinion is more complex than many observers in Washington assume. As shown in the chart below, roughly 70 percent of respondents support purchasing U.S. weapons, and nearly 60 percent say they would fight “at all costs” if China attacked. Those numbers do not describe a public that has given up on self-defense.
At the same time, only 34 percent believe that the United States is a credible country that keeps its word, and perceptions of U.S. credibility are closely tied to expectations of U.S. military support. Taken together, these findings suggest that the issue is not whether Taiwanese recognize the need to prepare. It is whether they regard arms purchases from the United States as part of a reliable security relationship. Once that confidence weakens, support for procurement becomes more difficult to sustain politically.
The divide is stark across the partisan line. Among supporters of the governing Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), 63 percent regard the United States as credible. Among supporters of the opposition Kuomintang (KMT), only 9 percent do. The same divide appears in views about what arms procurement is likely to achieve. Among DPP supporters, 51 percent believe that purchasing U.S. weapons would increase the likelihood of American military intervention if China attacked Taiwan. Among KMT supporters, only 14.4 percent agree. These figures point to a society divided over whether its most important security partner would ultimately come through. They also help explain the current legislative impasse. The KMT and the Taiwan People’s Party together hold a majority in the legislature, and both draw support from voters who are more skeptical of U.S. credibility.
Viewed from that angle, the current procurement debate in Taiwan looks rather different from the way it is often portrayed in the United States. Washington tends to interpret delays in Taipei as signs of weak resolve. Our evidence points in another direction. Willingness to resist appears substantial and broadly distributed across the public. What changes more noticeably is support for purchasing arms from the United States. When confidence in U.S. commitments declines, the case for expensive and long-horizon procurement becomes harder to make. Weapons that might otherwise be seen as prudent investments in deterrence begin to look like a wasteful gamble on a partner whose future conduct is uncertain. This gap is the political logic behind the current impasse, and it deserves more attention than it has received in American debates.
One reason credibility has moved to the center of Taiwan’s defense politics is the cumulative effect of strategic ambiguity. For decades, deliberate uncertainty about whether the United States would intervene militarily was widely seen as stabilizing. It was meant to discourage Beijing from assuming that aggression would go unanswered, while also discouraging Taipei from assuming that Washington would support unilateral moves toward formal independence. Under earlier conditions, ambiguity could be defended as a workable way to preserve deterrence on both sides. But regional conditions have changed. China’s military power has expanded dramatically, coercion across the Taiwan Strait has intensified, and the possibility of conflict no longer feels remote to many Taiwanese citizens. In that setting, ambiguity does not necessarily reassure. It can just as easily generate public anxiety
American political signals have done little to ease that anxiety. Previous President Joe Biden stated on four occasions that the United States would defend Taiwan, and those remarks were closely watched in Taiwan. Yet they did not settle the matter, in part because the State Department subsequently qualified them, preventing them from developing into a more consistent and durable policy signal. Current President Donald Trump, by contrast, has continued to speak in more ambiguous terms, declining to say clearly whether he would commit U.S. forces to Taiwan’s defense.
From the perspective of many in Taiwan, the result has been less a sophisticated strategy of deterrence than an unsettling sense of uncertainty at the highest levels of U.S. politics. Our survey finds that about half of Taiwanese worry that Washington and Beijing could eventually reach a deal that harms Taiwan’s interests. In this climate, arms sales do not automatically reassure. The Trump-Xi summit expected in May will be watched closely in Taiwan for any signals that the island is a security partner, not a tradable asset.
The debate over strategic ambiguity and strategic clarity should be understood in light of the way these questions are now viewed in Taiwan. Proponents of strategic clarity argue that an explicit commitment to defend Taiwan would strengthen deterrence by reducing uncertainty about U.S. intentions. Critics, by contrast, warn that greater clarity could provoke Beijing, embolden Taipei, or reduce American flexibility in a crisis. Yet whatever position one takes in that debate, strategic ambiguity has had a political side effect in Taiwan: It has gradually weakened public confidence in whether the United States would actually come to Taiwan’s aid. Once that confidence begins to erode, support for arms procurement becomes harder to sustain. Restoring it will require reassurance from Washington, not only through arms sales, but through signals that are clearer, more visible, and more consistent than those Taiwan has received in recent years.
Reassurance, however, cannot rest on words alone. Public judgments about credibility are formed through patterns that people can observe over time. Taiwanese citizens do not derive their views only from formal statements of policy or from abstract debates among American strategists. They interpret a wider range of signals, including presidential rhetoric, high-level diplomatic visits, visible military presence, and the timeliness with which already approved arms are delivered. Our data suggest that clear presidential commitments and a visible military presence in and around the Taiwan Strait do more to bolster confidence in possible U.S. assistance than arms sales announcements by themselves. Procurement cannot carry the full burden of reassurance. Without a broader pattern of credible support, arms sales alone may not generate the public confidence needed to sustain a larger defense agenda.
Taipei, of course, still has its own responsibilities. It should pass the defense budget, accelerate reserve and civil defense reforms, and prioritize systems that can survive a first strike and raise the cost of any attempted invasion. These are prudent steps regardless of changes in U.S. politics. But their political durability depends in part on whether the Taiwanese public sees those choices as embedded in a real security partnership rather than a one-sided dependency, or worse, a series of transactions.
For Washington, the implication is clear enough. The United States does not need to make maximalist promises or lock itself into unconditional commitments that would be difficult to manage under crisis scenarios. But it does need to reduce uncertainty in Taiwan about whether meaningful assistance would follow an unprovoked attack. Consistent rhetoric, visible cooperation, and timely delivery of approved systems would go much further than another round of criticism about whether Taiwan is spending enough. Skeptics may worry that firmer reassurance would encourage reckless behavior in Taipei or provoke a stronger response from Beijing. Our data suggest otherwise. Support for self-defense in Taiwan is already high. The more immediate problem is not overconfidence, but doubt about American follow-through. When confidence erodes, budgets stall and long-term procurement loses political momentum.
The stakes extend well beyond Taiwan. More than 90 percent of the world’s most advanced semiconductors are manufactured on the island, and any war in the Taiwan Strait would send shock waves through the global economy. More importantly, 23 million people in Taiwan live under the daily shadow of coercion and the possibility of conflict. Deterrence in the Taiwan Strait cannot be reduced to arms sales alone. It rests on a combination of Taiwan’s willingness and capacity to defend itself and perceived U.S. resolve to stand with it. The first is stronger than many in Washington assume. The second is more fragile than many are willing to admit. Preserving peace will require attention to both. Taiwan should pass its budget and continue strengthening its defenses. Washington should make its support steadier, more visible, and more believable. Weapons matter, but in Taiwan’s defense politics today, credibility matters even more.
