Some members of Congress are at odds over how to provide $10 billion in military aid for Taiwan that is included in the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The funds are set to be disbursed over five years through the State Department’s Foreign Military Financing program.
According to Defense News, top congressional appropriators want to provide the $10 billion through loans that need to be paid back rather than giving Taipei the money outright through grants. The idea of loaning the money would be to ease pressure on the State Department’s budget.
Members of Congress on the foreign relations committee prefer sending grants to Taiwan, and that is the form of aid Taipei is hoping to receive. “We urgently need the help and hope that assistance will be allocated as grants. We will maintain close communication and coordination with Congress and the executive branch to ensure that Taiwan’s defense needs are immediately met,” a spokesman for Taiwan’s de facto embassy in Washington told Defense News.
Senators Bob Menendez (D-NJ), James Risch (R-ID), and Reps. Gregory Meeks (D-NY) and Mike McCaul (R-TX) favor sending the money in grants and took the issue to congressional leadership in the House and Senate in a letter that was sent on Thursday.
Whichever way the aid is given to Taiwan, it will be viewed as a major provocation by China as such assistance is unprecedented. Since Washington severed diplomatic relations with Taipei in 1979, it has sold weapons to the island but never financed the purchases.
The NDAA also includes $1 billion in annual presidential drawdown authority, which will allow the US to send Taiwan weapons directly from Pentagon stockpiles. The Foreign Military Financing aid will be given to Taipei and used to purchase US-made arms.
The NDAA also contains provisions to boost informal diplomatic relations between the US and Taiwan, another type of cooperation that will anger Beijing. One amendment would send US government employees to Taiwan for two-year fellowship programs starting in the fall of 2023. US officials have participated in similar programs, but only for a few months at a time.
I would suggest a la carte.
So…loans are a 2 way street, needs a lender and an borrower. Did Taiwan ask for a loan to buy weapons? Nope. We’re forcing a loan of arms down their throats while calling it “aid,” and all the while make war more likely. Just keep poking the China bear, look how well that worked with Russia.
Our merchants of death are in pain, they need more profits and our public servants’ job is it to deliver, and they will deliver, come hell or high water.
I guess that would be the “Panda”.
building back better!
Not whether but how. Shocking.
$10 Billion Bucks?!!!! That is a very expensive way to piss someone off.
We could give it to Taiwan intervenously…
or rectally, … sorry.
😂
It would be even funnier if Robert’s last name were Schitz….
😂😂😂
No offense intended Robert! We luv ya!
You meant the MICC (the military industrial congressional complex) IS IN NEED of more blood, not Taiwan.
Boy Howdy, we ain’t finished with one war, and already lookin’ to start another.
Does anyone here actually support giving our taxpayer dollars to Taiwan in order to be prepared for a ( probably ain’t never-gonna -happen) war with China? Of course, we DO have good ol’ ‘Murka egging them on.
But what the heck, we need to keep feeding the gaping jaws of the MIC.
We are still at war with Afghanistan, and Iraq, and Syria, and Iran, and so many more. Economic warfare is brutal war against unarmed civilians, starving children to death is part of it.
Zelensky met with Biden shortly after the inauguration when the troops were still in Afghanistan.
Biden beats W. Bush, this is Biden’s war, and he still has not enough.
BIDEN is a war criminal, the pope should have excommunicated him a long time ago.
Excellent points, Renate.
As for excommunication, yeahhhh…
Isn’t there something in the Ten Commandments about not killing people?
Are you unaware of the Chinese policy with regards to reunification with Taiwan? I think I’ve told you this before – if all other means of reunification have failed they will use military force to achieve it (importantly though there is not a set date for this to take place).
But given the recent uptick in Chinese incursions into what the Taiwanese see as their airspace – it is not entirely unreasonable to want to be prepared for it within a couple of years.
There is no Chinese policy with regard to reunification with Taiwan. There is a Chinese policy with regards to pretending that invasion/occupation/annexation would constitute “reunification.”
OK to me it comes to much the same which ever way you formulate it, though by 2022 I think your formulation is closer to how the Taiwanese would see it.
Taiwan does not need any military aid, our MIC is in need of more business and more profits to fund the next elections. They have to find the best way to deceive the voters.
The US has lost its sense of direction…||| Bi-Partisan support?…
“Here is ten billion bucks. We want you to have it but you have to pay it back… no, wait… We’ll just say you have to pay it back.” Wink, wink…