标签： Asia

TEHRAN – In a landmark shift to a decades-long high-stakes conflict between Iran and the United States, the leaders of both nations have formally signed a cross-border memorandum of understanding (MoU) to end open hostilities via digital authentication, a senior Iranian foreign affairs official confirmed early Thursday.

Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei announced the development in an on-camera interview with Iran’s state-owned Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), noting that the digital signing by Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and U.S. President Donald Trump replaces a previously planned in-person signing ceremony scheduled for this Friday in Switzerland.

“Over the past 24 hours, our two sides conducted additional consultations and reassessment, and reached the conclusion that a virtual signing by the heads of state of both countries is the more favorable path forward,” Baghaei told reporters, adding that a formal in-person ceremonial gathering was deemed “not very appropriate” under current circumstances.

The spokesperson highlighted a key strategic rationale for the last-minute format change: digital signatures from both countries’ top executive leaders significantly increase the political costs for any future violation of the agreement’s terms, creating a stronger deterrent against backtracking from the war-ending commitment.

Baghaei confirmed that the long-awaited second phase of bilateral negotiations between Iran and the United States will proceed as originally planned, kicking off in Switzerland on Friday. He struck a cautious note on the outcome of upcoming talks, however, saying “we will have to see what outcome the parties will reach through mediators in the coming hours.”

Consistent with Iran’s core negotiating priorities, Baghaei emphasized that a ceasefire in Lebanon has held equal importance to a halt to hostilities on Iranian territory for Tehran throughout the negotiation process.

The finalized MoU, which commits to ending open conflict across all regional fronts including Lebanon, was first announced earlier this week by Iran, the United States, and Pakistan. The agreement capped off weeks of intensive mediated negotiations aimed at de-escalating a conflict that erupted in late February.

The conflict that the MoU seeks to end began on February 28, when Israel and the United States launched coordinated joint strikes on Tehran and multiple other urban centers across Iran. Iran responded with a large-scale barrage of missile and drone attacks targeting Israeli territory as well as U.S. military bases and strategic assets across the Middle East. Tehran also tightened control over the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz, barring safe passage for any vessels owned by or aligned with Israel and the United States.

On Wednesday, foreign policy analysts and peace activists welcomed a long-awaited breakthrough: the Trump administration has publicly released the text of a new memorandum of understanding (MOU) reached with Iranian negotiators, bringing the unprovoked US-Israeli war on Iran closer to a permanent end than at any point since hostilities began. While the deal marks a historic de-escalation of tensions, it has also ignited fierce partisan debate in Washington, with critics questioning the heavy human cost that preceded the agreement and supporters framing it as a long-overdue correction of failed maximalist policy.

Observers across the political spectrum have already noted one stark, unmissable detail embedded in both the MOU text and President Donald Trump’s recent remarks at the G7 Summit in France: the agreement implicitly acknowledges what war opponents have argued from the start – that the conflict was entirely unnecessary. To date, the war has claimed more than 3,400 Iranian lives, along with thousands of additional civilian and combatant casualties across the Middle East. In Lebanon alone, where Israeli forces have operated since early March, more than 3,600 people have been killed, according to on-the-ground counts.

The core terms of the 14-point MOU lay out a clear path toward peace. First and foremost, the document codifies the immediate and permanent end of all military operations across every front, including hostilities in Lebanon, with both sides committing to respect Lebanese territorial integrity and sovereignty and renounce future threats of force against one another. A 60-day negotiation window is set to finalize a permanent, binding peace deal, extendable only by mutual consent of both parties. Iran has agreed to maintain the current status quo of its nuclear program, a commitment consistent with long-standing Iranian assertions that its nuclear activities are entirely peaceful and never intended for military development. The MOU also includes two key US concessions: no new sanctions will be imposed on Iran during negotiations, and no additional US military forces will be deployed to the region ahead of a final deal.

Other critical provisions lay out a structured timeline for de-escalation and economic recovery. Within 30 days of the MOU’s signing, the US will fully lift its naval blockade of Iran, and will withdraw all remaining US forces from areas near Iran’s borders following the completion of a final deal. Iran has committed to ensuring safe, toll-free passage for commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz for the 60-day negotiation period, and will work with Oman and other Gulf littoral states to establish a long-term maritime governance framework aligned with international law and sovereign coastal state rights. A $300 billion regional reconstruction fund, backed by the US and its partner nations, is planned to help rebuild Iran’s infrastructure, which US and Israeli attacks have left heavily damaged: more than 100,000 housing units, along with countless schools, hospitals, bridges and other critical public assets have been destroyed or rendered unusable. The MOU also confirms that all US and multilateral sanctions on Iran will be lifted on an agreed schedule as part of the final deal, that all frozen Iranian assets will be unfrozen and made fully accessible, and that immediate waivers will be issued to allow Iranian crude oil and liquefied natural gas exports to resume immediately.

On the nuclear front, the framework addresses the core stated objective of the US-led war: Iran has reaffirmed its permanent commitment not to develop or acquire nuclear weapons, and both sides have agreed to develop a mutually agreed mechanism to manage existing enriched uranium stockpiles, most likely requiring down-blending under international Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) supervision. Broader negotiations on Iran’s right to peaceful nuclear enrichment will be finalized as part of the permanent deal.

The agreement has drawn sharp criticism from some Democratic lawmakers and Trump opponents in Washington, who have framed the MOU as a US surrender and taken particular issue with the $300 billion reconstruction fund. But Ryan Costello, policy director at the National Iranian American Council, pushed back against these criticisms in a detailed public statement, arguing that the deal’s core terms deliver mutual benefits for both nations even as they upend long-held Washington policy assumptions. “Time will tell if this memorandum can survive the caustic politics in Washington and Tehran that have accompanied any lessening of tensions between the US and Iran, and ultimately deliver relief that is sorely needed,” Costello wrote. “Yet, what has been started is not a threat to American security, it is a threat to the Washington mindset that any US-Iran outcome is ultimately zero-sum and that Iran’s gain is an American loss. The US will benefit if our nation moves off the path of war with Iran. That will be accomplished by the memorandum and the steps that it entails.”

Speaking to reporters at the G7 summit, Trump addressed ongoing questions about the MOU’s nuclear provisions, the core goal the White House has repeatedly cited to justify the war. While he retained a tough public posture, threatening to “bomb them” if Iran violates its commitments not to build nuclear weapons, Trump also echoed a position long championed by war opponents and independent foreign policy experts. “It is a little hard though, when you say that somebody wants it [nuclear energy], other people have it, other adjoining states have it, and you’re not letting them have it for purposes of electricity and things like that,” he said, referring to Iran’s civilian nuclear program. He also echoed Iran’s long-standing position that, as neighboring regional powers possess ballistic missiles, Iran should be permitted to maintain its own missile arsenal for national security.

Matt Duss, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy, summed up a common critique of the administration’s delayed policy shift: those are “things it would’ve been great to figure out before you started a war over them.” Danny Citrinowicz, a prominent Middle East policy expert, noted that while the conflict has been extraordinarily costly in lives and resources, the shift to a pragmatic diplomatic approach is still a welcome development. “It may have taken a long, costly, and complicated conflict, but the United States appears to have arrived at a conclusion that should have been evident from the start: Iran’s missile program is not negotiable because it sits at the very core of the regime’s security doctrine,” Citrinowicz said. “Reasonable people can ask whether such a prolonged conflict was necessary to reach this conclusion. Yet it is better to recognize strategic realities late than never at all. Before events spiraled completely out of control, the US administration stepped back from maximalist objectives and returned to a more measured and realistic approach.”

Even with the breakthrough, uncertainty remains about the final outcome. Trump acknowledged that the planned official signing of the permanent deal, scheduled for this Friday, could still fall through, and he threatened to resume military bombing campaigns if Iranian officials do not comply with the terms of the MOU. In a characteristic political aside, the president added that he will claim full credit for the agreement if it holds, but will blame Vice President JD Vance for any failure. If completed, the final deal will be formally endorsed by a binding United Nations Security Council resolution to cement its international legitimacy.

In a sworn declaration filed in a Mississippi federal court, the top digital and artificial intelligence official for the U.S. Department of Defense has publicly confirmed for the first time that U.S. military forces leveraged a government-adapted version of Elon Musk’s Grok AI to carry out more than 2,000 targeting strikes over a 96-hour window during the joint U.S.-Israel military campaign against Iran. The revelation, which marks the Trump administration’s first direct acknowledgment of Grok AI’s combat use in the conflict, emerged as part of a high-stakes intervention by the federal government into a civil environmental lawsuit against Musk’s xAI firm.

The lawsuit, filed in April 2026 by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), accuses xAI and its subsidiary MZX Tech of operating 27 unpermitted methane-powered gas turbines at a facility in Southaven, Mississippi. The turbines are used to power xAI’s Colossus 2 supercomputer in nearby South Memphis, Tennessee, which the company relies on to train and update all Grok AI models – including the government-specific variant used by the Pentagon.

The NAACP argues that the unregulated turbines violate the U.S. Clean Air Act, releasing toxic nitrogen oxide pollution that drives dangerous ozone formation. The organization notes that nearby Black communities in the Gulf South bear the disproportionate health burden of these emissions, which are linked to asthma attacks, chronic lung function decline, and increased risk of premature death. The legal complaint asks the court to order xAI to halt operations at the unpermitted facility, install modern pollution control technology, and pay financial penalties for every day of noncompliance with federal environmental law.

Cameron Stanley, who has served as the Pentagon’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer since January 2026, submitted the declaration on behalf of the Trump administration to support its intervention in the case on xAI’s side. Stanley, who previously led defense sector projects at Amazon Web Services before taking his current Pentagon role, outlined how the department uses the Grok Gov Model – a customized derivative of xAI’s commercial Grok AI – integrated into the military’s Maven Smart Systems (MSS) to core national security functions, including target identification, intelligence analysis, military readiness planning, and recruitment.

In his testimony, Stanley detailed that MSS workflows powered by Grok Gov allowed U.S. forces to deploy 2,000 munitions in just four days during what the military calls Operation Epic Fury. The filing does not specify the exact dates of this operation, leaving unconfirmed whether the strikes coincided with February 28, 2026 – the first day of the war, when a U.S. strike on a school killed 156 civilians, including 120 children. To date, Iran’s Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans has recorded nearly 3,500 total fatalities from U.S.-Israeli attacks across Iran since the conflict began.

Stanley characterized the 2,000-strike operation as clear proof of the massive operational efficiency gains delivered by the Grok Gov Model. He went on to warn that if the court rules against xAI and forces a shutdown of the Colossus 2 supercomputer by cutting off its Southaven power supply, the Pentagon’s ability to carry out critical national security missions and maintain technological advantage over U.S. adversaries would be severely undermined. In times of armed conflict or national emergency, Stanley argued, demand for AI processing capacity from Grok Gov Models surges dramatically, and Colossus 2 is uniquely positioned to provide the extra surge capacity needed to sustain ongoing military operations.

In an argument that redefines commercial AI infrastructure as a core national security asset, Stanley wrote that modern data center capacity is just as foundational to U.S. defense posture as traditional munitions production. “In the modern theater of operations, data center processing capacity must be recognized not merely as commercial infrastructure, but as a long-term strategic tool vital to maintaining our technological advantage against adversaries,” he stated in the filing.

The U.S. Department of Justice has backed the Pentagon’s position, urging the federal judge hearing the case in the Northern District of Mississippi to dismiss the NAACP’s lawsuit outright on national security grounds. “The Department of Justice will not sit idly by while private organizations use environmental laws to undermine our national security,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Adam Gustafson of the department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the G-7 Summit in Evian, France on Wednesday, former U.S. President Donald Trump laid out contradictory stances on his administration’s newly announced 60-day ceasefire agreement with Iran, blending aggressive military threats against Tehran with key concessions that have already drawn fierce criticism from hardline pro-Israel allies in his own Republican Party.

The core of the agreement is a temporary memorandum of understanding (MOU) that keeps the strategic Strait of Hormuz, a vital global chokepoint for oil and maritime trade, toll-free for the next two months. Under the terms of the deal, Iran will negotiate the future governance of the strait alongside Oman and other Persian Gulf littoral states in line with international law, leaving open the possibility of navigation fees being imposed after the ceasefire period ends. The White House has framed the ceasefire extension, announced publicly this past Sunday, as a first step toward reaching a permanent end to the ongoing conflict that has roiled global energy markets.

In unusually candid remarks, Trump acknowledged his biggest political risk tied to the conflict: economic fallout that could sink his presidency, echoing the political fate of Republican President Herbert Hoover, who left office in disgrace after the 1929 stock market crash and the onset of the Great Depression. “The one president I did not want to be was the late, great, Herbert Hoover,” Trump said, noting that stock markets have shifted directly in response to signals about whether the conflict would end or escalate. “The stock market is more brilliant than anybody there is, including the people on this stage, other than me, of course.”

The president went on to stress that Tehran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz had inflicted enough economic damage globally to push his administration to agree to the ceasefire extension. Even so, he adopted a belligerent tone when discussing enforcement of the MOU, repeating multiple times that he would resume large-scale military bombing of Iran if he disapproved of Tehran’s compliance. “It’s a memorandum of understanding. And if I don’t like it, we’ll go back to shooting at them, dropping bombs on their head,” Trump said. “If I don’t like it, if they don’t behave, we’ll go right back to dropping bombs right smack in the middle of their head, OK?”

The deal has already come under intense fire from Iran hawks and pro-Israel voices in the U.S., who have pushed for a full rollback of Iran’s nuclear program, ballistic missile arsenal, and regional military influence. Trump acknowledged that the terms of the MOU would amplify this criticism: the agreement does not address Iran’s nuclear program in any detail, leaving that critical issue for future negotiations during the 60-day ceasefire period.

Pushing back against demands that the U.S. seize Iran’s existing enriched uranium stockpiles, Trump argued that the material is buried deep in underground facilities that only the U.S. and China have the technical capacity to access, adding that international cameras are already in place to monitor suspect sites. He also rejected longstanding Israeli demands that Iran be barred from any enrichment activity entirely, noting that neighboring countries in the region maintain their own nuclear energy programs. “It’s a little hard when other people have it, other adjoining states have it, and you’re not letting them have it for purposes of electricity and things like that. You have to use a little common sense,” he said.

This stance marks a clear shift from Trump’s 2017 decision to unilaterally withdraw from the Obama-era Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the multilateral nuclear agreement that placed strict limits on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. Trump has framed his new framework as different from the JCPOA, arguing that the threat of ongoing U.S. military force prevents Iran from ever acquiring a nuclear weapon. “Whoever sells them a nuclear weapon would get nuked themselves,” he claimed, though the JCPOA already explicitly barred Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapons program.

Trump also dismissed demands from hawks and Israel that Iran be forced to completely eliminate its ballistic missile program, which he previously cited as a core justification for launching U.S. strikes against Iran. Arguing that it is unreasonable to bar Tehran from possessing any missiles when neighboring Gulf states like Saudi Arabia maintain their own arsenals, Trump claimed that U.S. strikes have already destroyed roughly 80 percent of Iran’s existing missile capacity. “Doesn’t work that way,” he said of demands for full disarmament.

On economic policy, Trump confirmed that the U.S. will not directly invest in Iran to help rebuild the country, which he estimated has sustained around $2 trillion in damages from U.S. and Israeli strikes. He added that Washington will not block neighboring Arab Gulf states from investing in Iran if a final peace deal is reached, a stance that is already fueling speculation that states including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar will move to normalize economic ties with Tehran in the coming months.

The president also drew backlash from hawks by confirming that he is open to returning billions of dollars in Iranian assets that have been frozen by Western sanctions, stating that the assets “is not our money” and will eventually need to be returned. The move is certain to please Tehran while hardening opposition from pro-Israel lawmakers in Washington.

Trump’s remarks swung between sharp criticism of Iran and faint praise for the country’s leadership. He referred to Iran as having a “primitive culture” while also acknowledging that Iran’s leaders “love their country.” He also openly boasted about U.S. strikes on Iranian civilian infrastructure, specifically highlighting the April 1 bombing of the Karaj B1 bridge, which he compared to New York’s George Washington Bridge.

In a surprising acknowledgment, Trump thanked both Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin for maintaining neutrality during the conflict, noting that both countries could have made the military campaign far more difficult for the U.S. Multiple independent outlets have previously reported that China and Russia provided Iran with arms and intelligence support during the fighting. “I just want to thank them because they made it a lot better,” Trump said. “I want to thank China, President Xi. I was with him, and he stayed neutral, totally neutral, and I appreciate it. And I want to thank Vladimir Putin; he was very neutral. They could have made it much more difficult for us.”

Trump also confirmed that the United Arab Emirates participated directly in offensive airstrikes against Iran during the conflict, saying he was caught off guard by the scale of the UAE’s military involvement. “He was dropping bombs last week, I said, ‘who the hell’s dropping all those bombs?’ It was the UAE. He’s a good fighter,” Trump said of UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed. The comments were made during a wide-ranging, rambling press conference flanked by top senior administration officials including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

The ongoing conflict over Iran has sent shockwaves through global energy markets, driving home a urgent lesson for the European Union: the bloc must urgently diversify its supply chains and build alternative trade and energy corridors that bypass the strategic Strait of Hormuz, through which nearly a fifth of global oil supplies pass daily. In the wake of volatile price swings and heightened supply risk, Brussels has turned its focus to two major infrastructure initiatives and deeper energy partnerships with Gulf states and India to shore up long-term energy security and advance the bloc’s strategic autonomy.

At the top of Brussels’ policy agenda is the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), a sweeping transcontinental infrastructure project that has gained renewed momentum amid the current energy crisis. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen highlighted the initiative during this year’s G7 summit, framing it as a core example of the resilient, diversified supply routes the bloc is pursuing to insulate itself from future geopolitical shocks. For the EU, IMEC is far more than a trade project: backers say it would deliver three core benefits — greater economic resilience, diversified supply chains, and strengthened energy security — all of which have grown more urgent as Russia’s aggression in Ukraine continues and the transatlantic strategic relationship faces growing friction.

While the EU as a whole has signed a memorandum of understanding backing IMEC, only a small number of the bloc’s 27 member states have formalized their participation. However, a senior anonymous EU diplomat involved in high-level planning for the initiative told the Associated Press that behind-the-scenes political commitment to the project runs far deeper than public participation suggests. Right now, work is focused on turning the broad vision for IMEC into tangible, on-the-ground implementation across the corridor’s three core pillars: transport and trade connectivity, energy integration, and digital infrastructure. The project could include new cross-border oil and gas pipelines, as well as high-capacity electricity transmission cables, among other major infrastructure assets. The EU’s press office has declined to share a detailed public timeline for IMEC’s rollout.

IMEC’s planned route runs through Israel, which has been a vocal supporter of the project from its early stages. Last year, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed he had discussed advancing IMEC with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, calling the initiative “a very revolutionary and transformative development that we want to bring into place.” But the project faces a major political hurdle: experts say it cannot reach its full potential without the participation of Saudi Arabia, a key regional energy and logistics hub, which requires normalization of diplomatic relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia first. Lianne Pollak-David, co-founder of the Israel-based Coalition for Regional Security, noted that U.S. diplomatic leadership will be critical to brokering that normalization, a necessary precondition for IMEC’s success. “Without normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia, IMEC cannot be truly realized,” she said. Currently, Saudi Arabia has stated it will only agree to normalize ties with Israel if there is a clear, binding pathway to a Palestinian state — a condition Netanyahu has repeatedly rejected. It remains unclear how the ongoing Iran war, which has already inflicted economic damage on Gulf Arab states, will shift Riyadh’s position on both normalization and IMEC; Saudi officials declined to comment on their stance regarding the project when contacted by the AP.

Beyond IMEC, the EU has made it a top priority to develop new energy infrastructure that bypasses geopolitical hotspots like the Strait of Hormuz entirely. Von der Leyen has confirmed that in just the first 54 days of the Iran conflict, the EU spent an extra €25 billion ($29 billion) on oil and gas imports, and the bloc now faces the risk of a prolonged jet fuel shortage that could disrupt travel and industry across the continent. During an April EU leaders’ summit, von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa stressed that the bloc stands ready to partner with Gulf Cooperation Council states to build new energy infrastructure that avoids conflict-prone chokepoints.

The value of these alternative routes has already been proven by Saudi Arabia’s East-West Pipeline, which connects the kingdom’s major eastern oil fields to export terminals on the Red Sea, bypassing the Strait of Hormuz entirely. Shortly after the Iran war began, state oil giant Aramco ramped up flows through the pipeline to its full maximum capacity of 7 million barrels of crude oil per day to avoid supply disruptions. French Foreign Ministry spokesperson Pascal Confavreux told the AP that G7 leaders are currently exploring mechanisms to finance and build new infrastructure that “will be able to go outside of the track of the Strait of Hormuz.”

While Brussels has not released detailed plans for specific EU-backed projects, many of which could ultimately be integrated into the broader IMEC framework, a senior anonymous EU official told the AP that the bloc will encourage European energy firms to invest in renewable energy projects across the Gulf that can then export power to the EU to meet the bloc’s domestic demand. Gabriel Mitchell, an energy analyst at the German Marshall Fund think tank, noted that building collaborative infrastructure projects with Gulf states will take years to complete. In the near term, the most viable projects are likely to be new oil and gas pipelines, which have the shortest construction timelines, as well as funding repairs for Gulf energy facilities that have been targeted by Iranian forces during the ongoing conflict. Mitchell added that all new projects will have to align with the EU’s ambitious climate targets, meaning any new pipelines will likely be designed with “dual-use” capabilities to carry both natural gas and clean hydrogen in the future, supporting the bloc’s net-zero transition.

A second major, EU-backed initiative already in development is the Great Seas Interconnector (GSI), a 1,208-kilometer undersea electricity transmission cable designed to link the power grids of continental Europe with EU member Cyprus and ultimately Israel. The GSI has been slowed by extensive bureaucratic delays and disputes over project financing, but its backers say it has transformative potential: it would end the long-standing energy isolation of both Cyprus and Israel, create a new energy link to South Asia via existing and planned infrastructure, and could also be integrated into the broader IMEC network. Gallia Lindenstrauss, a senior fellow at the Israel-based Institute for National Security Studies, called the GSI “a very pragmatic solution for the modern energy needs” that lays critical groundwork for the global transition to renewable energy. “As energy security and grid backup move to the forefront of the global agenda, this project provides a flexible platform,” Lindenstrauss said. The U.S. has also thrown its support behind the project and broader Eastern Mediterranean energy integration: U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright announced last week the inauguration of the new Eastern Mediterranean Energy Center at Rice University in Houston, which aims to boost cooperation on natural gas development, U.S. liquefied natural gas infrastructure, and cross-border energy transportation networks across the region. Wright noted that the U.S. views the Eastern Mediterranean as “an increasingly important region for global energy development” as it works to support European energy security.

WASHINGTON — Amid intensifying military pressure from Beijing on the self-governing island of Taiwan, the island’s highest-ranking diplomatic representative in the United States has emphasized that Taipei urgently needs to procure U.S.-manufactured weaponry to bolster its self-defense capabilities. Alexander Yui Tah-ray, who leads the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office — Washington’s de facto embassy for Taiwan, which the U.S. does not formally recognize as a sovereign state — also confirmed he has detected no shift in longstanding U.S. policy toward the island, which China claims as an inalienable part of its territory.

The $14 billion arms package, which won approval from senior U.S. congressional leaders earlier this year, has remained in gridlock ever since President Donald Trump returned from a state visit to Beijing in May, where he discussed the proposed sale at length with Chinese President Xi Jinping. The delay has stoked widespread anxiety across Taiwan and drawn sharp concern from members of Congress on Capitol Hill.

In an exclusive interview with the Associated Press in Washington on Wednesday, Yui made clear the necessity of the requested arms for defensive ends. “We need those arms for defensive purposes. We’re trying to increase our defense expenditure. We try to increase our ability to defend ourselves better and survive times of crisis,” he said.

Unlike many global powers, the U.S. does not maintain official diplomatic recognition of Taiwan, in line with Beijing’s requirement that all nations with formal ties to China cut off official relations with Taipei. Even so, Washington has remained the island’s most powerful informal ally and its largest supplier of defensive military hardware. Under longstanding U.S. domestic law, the U.S. is required to provide Taiwan with enough military equipment to deter any potential aggressive action from Beijing, which has repeatedly vowed to take control of the island by force if necessary to achieve unification. Beijing has consistently opposed all U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, which has operated outside of Chinese Communist Party control since 1949.

Yui, who holds the de facto role of Taiwan’s ambassador to Washington, stressed that Taiwan does not plan to rely solely on U.S. military intervention in the event of a crisis. “This is our responsibility, so we will not wait and depend for the U.S. cavalry to come and save us,” he said. “That’s why we’re willing to acquire, to buy U.S. equipment and arms to make ourselves stronger.”

The envoy added that the scale of the requested arms sale must match the severity of the threat Taiwan faces from mainland China, a threat he described as “actually pretty high.” He pushed back against Beijing’s framing of cross-strait tensions, noting, “First and foremost, we’re not the aggressors. It is the People’s Republic of China who is sending all the planes and ships. They’re the ones huffing and puffing. They are the ones who’s trying to annihilate our freedom and democracy in Taiwan.”

In recent years, the People’s Liberation Army has deployed warships and military aircraft near Taiwan on an almost daily basis, and has carried out multiple large-scale military exercises in the waters and airspace surrounding the island. Beijing views control of Taiwan as a non-negotiable core interest, and blames pro-independence forces on the island and their international supporters for rising instability across the Taiwan Strait.

Reaffirming his assessment of U.S. policy, Yui said he had seen no adjustments to Washington’s longstanding position on Taiwan, and added that the Taipei government is willing to respect the timeline the second Trump administration chooses to move forward with the announcement.

The proposed arms sale enjoys broad bipartisan support in Congress, and lawmakers raised their concerns over the delay to Secretary of State Marco Rubio during a public hearing earlier this month. Rubio confirmed that U.S. policy toward Taiwan remains unchanged, and stated that Washington does not negotiate or consult with Beijing on U.S. arms sales to the island. “We’re aware of their position. They talk about it all the time. They are not negotiated, and they are not consulted,” Rubio said.

Rubio clarified that the proposal has not been intentionally held up, but is still undergoing interagency review, with multiple factors being weighed by the administration. “It includes the availability of the stocks in the short term,” he said, referencing U.S. military stockpiles that have been significantly depleted amid ongoing operations in the Iran war. “We have to balance that with our own procurement process.”

The Trump administration did greenlight a separate $11 billion arms package for Taiwan back in December, which included advanced High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and conventional howitzers. Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te said his administration maintains close, regular contact with U.S. officials, and added, “We hope the arms purchase from the U.S. can be approved as soon as possible.”

In response to the push from Taipei, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian reiterated Beijing’s longstanding opposition, stating that any attempt by the Taiwanese government to seek independence through reliance on U.S. support and military buildup is “a dead end.” “China’s opposition to American arms sales to Taiwan is consistent and clear,” he said.

Yui, who took up his post in Washington in late 2023 during the final months of the Joe Biden administration, is now navigating a second Trump presidency marked by shifting tones toward Beijing. Biden repeatedly stated during his time in office that he would deploy U.S. troops to defend Taiwan if China launched an attack. By contrast, the second Trump administration has taken a more conciliatory approach to Beijing after a first term defined by an intense tit-for-tat trade war.

Trump has raised concerns among observers by appearing to break with a longstanding Reagan-era pledge not to hold prior consultations with Beijing on arms sales to Taiwan, but he has also broken decades of protocol by suggesting he could directly call Taiwanese President Lai, a step no sitting U.S. president has ever taken.

In its 2025 National Defense Strategy published in January, the Pentagon outlined its approach to countering China, stating that it seeks to deter Beijing through military strength rather than open confrontation. The strategy document notes that the U.S. will “build, posture, and sustain a strong denial defense” along a chain of strategic Pacific islands that includes Taiwan, to block Chinese expansion into the broader Pacific Ocean.

Yui attributed the administration’s seemingly mixed signals to Trump’s unconventional, outside-the-box governing style, and expressed long-term confidence in the U.S.-Taiwan partnership. “It’s important to look at the actions, what is happening, not just the rhetoric,” he said. “The big stick is still there.”

Associated Press writer Simina Mistreanu contributed reporting from Taipei, Taiwan.