Honor guards prepare to raise the Taiwan flag in the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall square. (Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The Biden Administration will soon send Taiwan military weapons and equipment from its stockpiles but will require Congress to free up dollars to backfill that delivery, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said today.
When Congress approved the fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, it included a provision enabling the administration to send $1 billion military in aid to Taiwan via the Presidential Drawdown Authority — the measure used to expedite weapon deliveries to Ukraine — which takes weapons from existing Pentagon stocks and ships them overseas. When asked about reports that the Pentagon is finally ready to use this power with a $500 million PDA package, Austin confirmed to senators that it is in the works.
“You are correct: We are working on an initiative, and we hope to have an action forthcoming here in the near term,” he told members of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Austin did not provide lawmakers with a timeline for that plan or detail what it will include, but noted that the Pentagon will need Congress to approve new spending to refill stockpiles with new equipment, a move that could be done via a supplemental spending bill.
“We will absolutely need to have the appropriations to replace those things which we provide,” the retired four-star Army general added. “We won’t hesitate to come forward and ask for what we need to make sure that we maintain our stocks.”
With the rise of China as the primary military threat to America, the US has been looking for ways to boost Taiwan’s defenses, in part to deter Beijing’s military from invading the island. As part of that effort, the US State Department in recent years approved the sale of Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, M1 Abrams main battle tanks, amphibious assault vehicles (AAVs), F-16 fighter aircraft and munitions, Volcano minelayers and more. Such capabilities could potentially be pulled from US stockpiles and fast tracked to Taiwan now.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo joined Austin at today’s hearing to field questions about Washington’s relationship with Beijing and challenges facing the US in the Indo-Pacific region. The hearing comes just weeks before the committee is poised to begin marking up FY24 spending bills, to include the DoD’s request for $842 billion in discretionary funds. That portion of the request contains $9.1 billion for the Pacific Deterrence Initiative to help Washington prepare for a military conflict with China with funding for items like air basing, a new missile warning and tracking architecture, defense of the US territory of Guam and Hawaii, and multinational training and experiments.
Although senators did not wade into many of these plans, both Republicans and Democrats said they are concerned Pentagon planning for next year will be hindered if House lawmakers opt to cut defense spending, or lawmakers fail to approve a bill and the DoD must operate on a longer-term continuing resolution. (A CR would require the DoD to adhere to FY23 spending plans).
“No amount of money can make up for lost time and … the PRC is not waiting,” Austin told senators. “Our budget reflects our strategy: We went to great pains to make sure that we linked our budget request to the strategy and so without a budget, it’s difficult to execute the strategy as designed.
He reaffirmed that without the FY24 budget passed, the DoD cannot move forward with new procurement programs and shipbuilding could incur a $9.7 billion “impact.”
