Taiwan President Lai calls off US transit as Trump seeks Xi summit

TAIPEI – Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te called off an overseas trip planned for next week after the Trump administration failed to greenlight his stopover in the US, amid concerns it could derail trade talks with China.

Taiwan’s leader is not planning any overseas travel in the near future, given the need for typhoon recovery work in southern Taiwan and tariff negotiations with the US, the Presidential Office in Taipei said.

Mr Lai was not blocked from visiting the US, Taipei’s Foreign Ministry said on July 29.

“There has been no postponement, cancellation, nor any denial of permission for the transit by the US side,” Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Hsiao Kuang-wei told reporters in Taipei.

“Given the ongoing post-disaster recovery efforts in southern Taiwan, the ongoing reciprocal tariff negotiations with the US, and the relevant international situation, the president has no plans for overseas visits in the near future.”

Mr Lai had intended to stop in New York on Aug 4 and then Dallas 10 days later as part of a trip to diplomatic allies Paraguay, Guatemala and Belize, Bloomberg reported earlier in July.

Planning for that trip was thrown into flux late last week when Taiwanese officials could not get their US counterparts to give the go ahead, according to people familiar with the matter.

The US had mounting concerns Mr Lai’s visit could disrupt trade negotiations with China and a potential summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, the people said.

The hesitation over Mr Lai’s trip unnerved some officials in the US, as well as in Taipei, who fear President Donald Trump may concede too much to China as he seeks a meeting with Mr Xi, according to the people. Bloomberg reported earlier that Mr Trump’s team was reaching out to chief executives to join him on a possible trip to Beijing in 2025. 

While Mr Lai’s trip was never formally announced, officials in Paraguay and Guatemala had been expecting him to arrive in August, but no longer do so, according to people familiar with the preparations for his visit.

Trump officials denied Mr Lai permission to transit through New York after China raised objections with Washington about the visit, the Financial Times reported, citing people familiar with the decision. It was unclear whether he was also blocked from stopping over in Dallas, the newspaper added.

The rebuke will fan concerns that Washington’s position on the self-ruled democracy, which Beijing considers a part of its territory, is becoming a trade war bargaining chip. In an abrupt policy reversal, Mr Trump already put on the negotiating table some tech curbs imposed on China over national security concerns.

“Trump’s decision to deny permission for President Lai to visit New York sends a dangerous signal: that the United States can be bullied by Beijing into silence on Taiwan,” said former US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose 2022 visit to Taipei sparked uproar. 

“This is a victory for Xi,” she wrote on X. “Let us hope it is not indicative of a dangerous change in US policy.”

The White House did not reply to a request for comment. A State Department official said transits by high-level Taiwanese officials, including presidents, were fully consistent with longstanding US policy and practice, which has not changed.

The US could yet suggest an alternative timeframe and layover locations. In 2024, the Taiwanese President pushed back a planned transit through Hawaii and Guam by several months following a Biden administration request to wait until after the US election, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Mr Lai is planning to go ahead with his trip later in 2025, according to one person familiar with the plans.

His planned visit came at a delicate diplomatic moment. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice-Premier He Lifeng on July 28 met in Stockholm for talks aimed at advancing a trade deal with ramifications for global markets. An extension of a tariff truce reached between both sides is expected and would help pave the way for a Trump-Xi meeting.

China, which has branded Mr Lai a “separatist” and “parasite”, views Taiwan as the most sensitive issue in relations with other countries. It has increasingly opposed US interactions with Taiwanese leaders, often by staging large-scale military exercises surrounding the island, following Mrs Pelosi’s trip to Taipei.  

Linking Taiwan to trade with China “sends a dangerous message to Beijing”, said Ms Laura Rosenberger, a former US diplomat who also chaired the American Institute in Taiwan until 2025. 

“At a time when Beijing is engaging in increasingly coercive behavior toward Taipei, the US needs to be sending a clear message of commitment to longstanding precedents, not allowing Beijing to once again move the goalposts,” she added.

Embattled leader

Mr Lai, who won the 2024 presidential election with the lowest winning percentage since 2000, now risks looking weak at home and abroad. Last weekend, a failed attempt to unseat lawmakers handed the opposition more ammunition for its agenda, which includes forging closer ties with Beijing. 

Adding to the uncertainty, Taiwan’s trade officials are currently in Washington for talks aimed at clinching a deal to avert a threatened 32 per cent tariff.

All of Taiwan’s sitting presidents since the 1990s have travelled to the US on stopovers en route to other destinations. While most visits passed without triggering heightened tensions, a trip by then leader Lee Teng-hui to speak at Cornell University in 1995 sparked the so-called Third Strait Crisis, with China firing missiles into waters near the main island of Taiwan.

Stopover requests, on occasion, have been used as a way for US leaders to signal displeasure with Taiwan’s policy. 

The most prominent example of that came in 2006, when then US president George W. Bush scuttled then Taiwan president Chen Shui-bian’s request to transit to Paraguay via either New York or San Francisco.

That snub was taken as a sign his unofficial relationship with Washington had suffered a serious blow, after Mr Chen upset the Bush administration with a series of pro-independence policies that risked provoking China.

Mr Lai’s New York and Dallas stops would have been his first to continental US soil since he became president and Mr Trump took power in January.

His transits in Hawaii and Guam last December were followed by what Taipei described as China’s largest naval deployment in years along the first island chain, which also includes Japan and the Philippines. BLOOMBERG