Not So Ambiguous

On Tuesday in Beijing, President Trump was asked to what degree the economic pain of the American people was motivating him to make a deal with China, and Donald responded "not even a little bit. The only ting that matters when I'm talking about Iran, they can't have a nuclear weapon."  Michael Smerconish vigrously defended that remark and commented also

Arguably, the bigger story was Trump's revelation was that Xi had directly asked Trump whether the US would defend Taiwan if China attacked.

Think about that for a moment. The leader of China flat-out asked. The question alone tells you everything about where Beijing's head is. If Xi really said that to Trump, it suggests that Xi is looking to invade Taiwan and he's looking for a green light from the United States to do so. That's a monumental admission of an intent to go to war and it's an undiplomatic, none of Xi's business question to Trump. According to The New York Times, Trump gave Xi no response: "I said I don't talk sbout those things."

That's not a dodge. That's not a weakness. That's a longstanding U.S. policy of strategic ambiguity and the only answer that keeps China guessing.

And still critics pounced again. Taiwan itself issued a statement reaffirming Trump's longstandingcomitment to their defense. But what kind of diplomacy would it have been had Trump, just after leaving China, just having been solicitous of Xi's involvement ending the war in Iran, instead said "yes, we're going to arm Taiwan to the teeth."  It would have destroyed any prospect of achieving his larger objective.

            .

Smerconish falsely believes that the President's "larger objective" was gaining assistance from Beijing on the Iran war when Trump's primary objective was pecuniary. No matter. When Donald was interviewed Friday evening by Brett Baier, fresh off getting his rear handed to him he told the Fox News' journalist

When you look at the odds, China is a very, very powerful, big country. That's a very small island. Think of it- it's 95 miles away. We're 9500 miles away.That's a little bit of a difficult problem... Taiwan would be very smart to cool it a little bit. China would be very smart to cool it a little bit.

Trump promised Xi he would serve up Taiwan on a platter. And so it begins… https://t.co/VY2zYKgJpa

— Luis Moreno (@LuisMorenolg) May 16, 2026

"Taiwan would be very smart to coll it a little bit (and) China would be very smart to cool it a little bit" is a piece of moral equivalence which would be condemned if any other President would have stated it. None has, though, because it undermines the traditional American policy of strategic ambiguity as pertains to the American response if Mainland China were to invade the Republic of China. The rationale behind strategic ambiguity is that the  USA opposes invasion of Taiwan by the Commu- I mean, by China- and thus might or might not respond were it to occur.

Trump added of a proposed weapons sale to our ally, "I may do it. I may not do it." The ambivalence speaks volumes.

The United States has aircrft which can travel 9,000 miles. What it does not have is a President willing to be similtaneiously clear and ambiguous. The policy of the USA should remain as it has been or a little closer to full support for the island nation. It should not be to scold the democratic nation of Taiwan nor, with a metaphorical nod and a  wink, to  suggest that the nation is so far away that the military which Donald Trump brags about could not respond. Xi might as well have been told "have your way with that pesky little problem of yours."

This is not a little matter, nor one of simple fairness. In February, The New York Times noted that Taiwan makes 90% of the world's high-end computer chips and

In secret briefings held in Washington and Silicon Valley, national security officials warned executives from companies like Apple, Advanced Micro Devices and Qualcomm that China was making plans to retake Taiwan, which Beijing has long considered a breakaway territory. A Chinese blockade of Taiwan, the officials said, could choke the supply of computer chips made on the island and bring the U.S. tech industry to its knees.....

 “The single biggest threat to the world economy, the single biggest point of single failure, is that 97 percent of the high-end chips are made in Taiwan,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said last month at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, slightly overstating industry estimates. “If that island were blockaded, that capacity were destroyed, it would be an economic apocalypse"...

A confidential report commissioned in 2022 by the Semiconductor Industry Association for its members, which include the largest U.S. chip companies, said cutting the supply of chips from Taiwan would lead to the largest economic crisis since the Great Depression. U.S. economic output would plunge 11 percent, twice as much as the 2008 recession. 

The Times added "The collapse would be even more severe for China." That is not a good thing, because the President who clings to zero-sum game probably believes that something bad for another nation- China, in this case- would necessarily be good  And a confrontation between the two nations would be calamitous as "now, more thanever, it has become clear that Taiwan is critical to America's economic survival, especially as artificial intelligence- which is built using chips made in Taiwan- drives the U.S. stock market and fuels economic growth."

This is what Donald Trump "(doesn't) want to talk about"- only he did, and not in a good way. 

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