Xi Presses Trump to End Taiwan Arms Sales as a $14 Billion Package Stays Frozen

WASHINGTON — Xi Jinping is expected to press President Trump to halt American arms sales to Taiwan during his state visit this week, invoking a 1982 communiqué between the two countries and offering cooperation on Iran in return, according to people briefed on discussions ahead of the summit.

What Beijing is seeking is not a new concession so much as a permanent one. The United States has already suspended a $14 billion arms package for Taiwan, which Mr. Trump has described as a "very good negotiating chip" and said he was holding "in abeyance." Mr. Xi's request is that the freeze be made lasting.

Three people familiar with the pre-summit discussions said Beijing was likely to raise its interpretation of the third of the Three Joint Communiqués, signed in 1982, which China reads as committing Washington to reducing arms sales over time. Mr. Xi could do so at the U.S. National Archives, where the document is held.

The Trump administration approved an $11 billion package for Taiwan in December, the largest ever. The second, worth about $14 billion, has been on hold for months, and sales planned for May were suspended after Mr. Trump's summit with Mr. Xi in Beijing that month.

In exchange for movement on Taiwan, China is offering to help apply pressure on Iran over the war in the Middle East, the people said.

Taipei's position

Taiwan's government said it was confident the sales would continue.

The United States government and Congress have "repeatedly expressed support for Taiwan's self-defense capabilities," a spokesman for Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense said. Taiwan's government rejects Beijing's sovereignty claims.

Senator Pete Ricketts, the Nebraska Republican who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on East Asia and the Pacific, was among senior Republicans expressing support for Taiwan ahead of the meeting.

Under the Taiwan Relations Act, the United States is bound by law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself, despite the absence of formal diplomatic relations. Under the Six Assurances, also issued in 1982 but declassified only in 2020, Washington did not set a date for ending arms sales and did not agree to consult Beijing in advance of them.

That second point is why the discussion itself matters in Taipei, regardless of its outcome.

What Beijing expects

Chinese analysts have set expectations at the modest end.

"So far, the outcome has been quite good for China, which is the pause on U.S. export of military equipment," said Zhao Hai, vice president of the Chinese Institute of Hong Kong, a branch of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. "If we can extend that pause and even cancel some of the more offensive weaponry, that would be better."

Mr. Xi arrived at Joint Base Andrews on Wednesday with his wife, Peng Liyuan, and was met on the tarmac by Mr. Trump — an unusual gesture from a president who typically receives foreign leaders at the White House. It is Mr. Xi's first state visit to the United States in more than a decade and the two leaders' second summit this year.

A protester scaled a light pole in Washington on Tuesday and unfurled a banner objecting to the visit.

What to watch

Whether the $14 billion package moves in either direction. It has been frozen for months. An announcement releasing it, or formally cancelling it, is the only outcome that would change Taiwan's position materially.

Whether the 1982 communiqué is mentioned in any joint statement. Language endorsing Beijing's interpretation of it would be a substantive shift, and it is the document to watch rather than the rhetoric around it.

What Washington says about Iran. If Chinese cooperation on Iran materialises in the weeks after this summit, the question of what was exchanged for it becomes considerably sharper.