US to speed up approval for supply of arms worth $500M to Taiwan: Report

We have seen that the US is constantly supporting Taiwan when it comes to its tensions with China and it is also reported that the US believes China could attack Taiwan at any time so they will have to prepare Taiwan for the same otherwise it could be a big disaster for the island nation as the Chinese army is currently too strong for Taiwan’s army to put up any defense. Talking about defense, we reported earlier about a potential $500M arms deal between the US and Taiwan which also got approval from the Biden administration. Now, we are getting reports that the deal has been fast tracked and it will take no time to get approval.

If you don’t know, it has already been 35 times since the Biden administration has approved arms deal to Ukraine over the same special “emergency authority” in the US which is given to the President and under that authority, Taiwan will now get the weapons too. One spokesperson said, “Our approach remains consistent with longstanding U.S. policy… We’re hard at work fulfilling our obligations under the TRA (Taiwan Relations Act), and we’re going to continue to do so,”

As part of the 2023 budget in the US, “Congress authorized up to $1 billion worth of weapons aid for Taiwan using Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA), a type of authority that expedites security assistance and has helped to send arms to Ukraine”. It is worth noting that the Taiwanese army is currently facing a shortage of F-16Vs and their chief has also said that due to supply chain issues, the order is getting delayed but they are working to “make up deficiencies” as much as possible.

Obviously, the supply of weapons to Taiwan under the same act that grants authority to war-torn Ukraine has irked China big time and they have already condemned the reports of supplying Taiwan with arms worth $500M. At the moment, China says that the US should rethink their deal once again and both the parties are at the table discussing peace talks as we speak so it is also possible China could add a clause to not supply arms to Taiwan in these talks.