KMT Chair Cheng Li-wun Arrives in U.S. as Taiwan Arms Sale Hangs in Limbo

Cheng Li-wun, chairwoman of Taiwan's Kuomintang (KMT), the island's largest opposition party, has held that role since November 2025. She arrived in San Francisco on June 1 as the head of a KMT delegation, beginning a two-week U.S. visit. The central message of the trip is a call for Beijing and Washington to pursue "reconciliation and cooperation" and avoid war. Her itinerary includes stops in Boston and New York before a Washington leg featuring meetings with political figures and think tanks. She confirmed she will meet with U.S. lawmakers and officials during the Washington stop, though declined to identify them, citing confidentiality.

The visit carries particular salience given Cheng's recent cross-strait diplomacy. In April 2026, Cheng traveled to Beijing, where she met with General Secretary Xi Jinping, the first meeting between the leaders of the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party in nearly ten years. It is also the first visit to the United States by a KMT leader in nearly two years. Cheng said publicly that she was pleased to see China-U.S. ties moving in a better direction after President Trump and Xi met in Beijing last month. The KMT and Cheng are broadly regarded as more favorably disposed toward Beijing than Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party. In December 2025, Cheng opposed President Lai Ching-te's proposal to increase military spending by $40 billion over eight years, and the KMT, which along with the Taiwan People's Party holds a parliamentary majority, cut by a third government plans to spend an extra $40 billion on arms.

Cheng's arrival in Washington coincides with a contested decision over a $14 billion arms package that Congress approved for Taiwan in January but that has stalled awaiting presidential action. Acting U.S. Navy Secretary Hung Cao confirmed the pause in a Senate hearing, citing the need to conserve munitions for the Iran campaign known as Operation Epic Fury. Cao testified a week after the weapons sale took center stage in talks between Trump and Xi in Beijing. During that summit, Trump called the package a "negotiating chip," setting aside the long-standing practice of not discussing arms sales with Beijing. Cao told lawmakers the final decision would rest with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Taiwan's government said it had not been formally notified of any adjustment, with a presidential spokesperson telling the Associated Press that there was "no information regarding any adjustments the U.S. will make to this arms sale."

The statutory framework underlying the sale is the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, which requires the United States to provide Taiwan with defensive arms sufficient to maintain a credible self-defense capability. The U.S. does not officially recognize Taiwan but is committed under that law to helping the island defend itself. The $14 billion package follows a record $11 billion arms sale that the U.S. approved in late 2025. Delays in U.S. arms sales to Taiwan are common, with the current total backlog approaching $30 billion, and China protests every package. What distinguishes the current pause is its diplomatic context: Trump has suggested the arms package could be used as a "negotiating chip," despite decades of precedent against consulting with Beijing on such sales. Xi reportedly told Trump at their meeting that the Taiwan question is the most important issue in bilateral relations and warned that the two nations could "have clashes and even conflicts" if the issue is not handled properly.

The backdrop for Cheng's visit also includes the conclusion of the Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia's premier annual defense forum, which wrapped up in Singapore over the weekend. At the conference, Hegseth told assembled civilian and military officials that Beijing is "credibly preparing to potentially use military force to alter the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific." He also pressed Asian allies to increase defense spending, urging them to follow the NATO model of committing to 5% of gross domestic product. China downgraded its attendance at this year's dialogue. The rhetorical distance between Hegseth's forum warnings about Chinese military ambitions and the simultaneous pause of a congressionally approved Taiwan arms sale illustrates the central tension in current U.S. cross-strait policy: the administration is issuing deterrence rhetoric while withholding the hardware that reinforces it.

Trump's vacillation and Cao's Iran war rationale are already sparking concern in Washington and throughout the global defense community. Taiwan's representative to the United States, Alexander Yui, said publicly that Taiwan should be able to acquire the arms it needs to maintain a stronger defense. William Yang, a senior analyst at the Crisis Group, warned that the pause will "exacerbate anxiety and scepticism about U.S. support in Taiwan" and make it difficult for Taipei to seek additional defense budget increases. Cheng's own visit adds a further complication: she arrives in Washington carrying cross-strait credentials that the ruling DPP does not possess, at a moment when the Trump administration has shown a willingness to engage Beijing on terms that depart sharply from prior U.S. policy. Whether Cheng's meetings with congressional foreign affairs and defense committee members produce any legislative pressure on the stalled arms decision remains to be seen.