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Did US pressure before Xi-Trump summit force KMT hand on Taiwan’s defence budget?

Pressure from Washington was likely to have played a decisive role in Taiwan’s opposition parties backing a sharply expanded special defence budget last week, analysts…

By Samantha Johnson / May 11, 2026

Pressure from Washington was likely to have played a decisive role in Taiwan’s opposition parties backing a sharply expanded special defence budget last week, analysts said, as concerns mount in Taipei ahead of a summit between US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping.

The anxiety centres on potential concessions from Trump this week in exchange for economic gains from Beijing, which views Taiwan as a core interest and the “biggest risk” in ties with the US, and has kept up military pressure on the island.
Taiwan’s legislature on Friday passed a NT$780 billion (US$26 billion) special defence budget bill, after months of political infighting about the financial burden involved and the specific types of weaponry needed.

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The agreed amount was far above the “NT$380 billion plus N” framework previously favoured by the main opposition party Kuomintang, but still well short of the government’s proposed NT$1.25 trillion package.

The bill was jointly pushed through by the KMT and the smaller opposition Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), which together hold a legislative majority.

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The scaled-down package covers US arms sales to Taiwan, but excludes many locally produced weapons and military-industrial programmes championed by the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, including drones, AI-enabled battlefield systems and indigenous missile projects.

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