Trump's only comments—very debatable and largely unfounded—have consisted of assessing that “China doesn’t want to do that [i.e., invade Taiwan]”, and quoting Xi Jinping during a phone call as saying, for instance: “He told me, ‘I will never do it as long as you’re president’.” In addition, he has harshly criticized Taiwan for “stealing” the American semiconductor industry, and pressured Taiwanese industries to invest ever more in the U.S. While there is no evidence of Trump’s intention to abandon Taiwan, or bargaining it away for a trade deal with Beijing as some have anticipated, the question of whether the U.S. would intervene if Beijing attempted forcible unification with Taiwan looms larger than at any point in the recent decades.

Yet, focusing exclusively on presidential rhetoric risks overlooking the deeper structural forces shaping U.S.-Taiwan relations. The U.S. policy toward Taiwan is sustained not only by the president but also by a wider, more complex system of stakeholders, including executive agencies, Congress, as well as the American industrial technological base. This Memo aims to make sense of the U.S. policy on Taiwan by mapping these different stakeholders and drawing perspectives on the future of U.S.-Taiwan relations under Trump.