Biden Regime Approves First Foreign Military Aid Package Using Foreign Military Financing for Taiwan
The Biden regime recently approved the first military aid package for Taiwan that uses Foreign Military Financing (FMF).
FMF is a State Department program that grants foreign governments money to purchase United States weapons. Per an Associated Press report, FMF is usually used for sovereign, independent states. The US government doesn’t recognize Taiwan as a country.
American officials informed AP that the only other occasion FMF has been used for a political entity that’s not a nation-state was aid to the African Union, a supranational bloc comprising 55 African states.
The FMF package is valued at $80 million. However, the Biden administration did not reveal its contents in a notification to Congress. The 2023 National Defense Authorization Act allocated $2 billion in FMF funds for Taiwan. According to Dave DeCamp of Antiwar.com, this represents the first time the funds have been used.
This marks just the latest move by the US government to confront China. The mainland Chinese government views Taiwan as a rogue province that must be reunified with the rest of China. While the US arms Taiwan, it does not officially recognize its independence from China. However, recent moves by the US government indicate that the US is pursuing an ever-hawkish line against China by propping up the Taiwanese government.
Back in July, the Biden regime supplied Taiwan with a $345 million weapons package that used the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA) for the first time.
The PDA grants President Joe Biden the power to send weapons straight from US military stockpiles, which is the main way the US has been supplying Ukraine with arms. The 2023 NDAA contains $1 billion in PDA funds allocated to Taiwan.
Indeed, the US looks like it’s trying to turn Taiwan into the next Ukraine by arming it to the teeth against a nuclear-armed power. This is one theater of the broader pivot to Asia where the US will be making an effort to contain China’s rise in East Asia.
Should the US continue arming Taiwan to the teeth and making concrete moves to having Taiwan officially declared independence from China, another geopolitical tragedy like the one we see between Russia and Ukraine will undoubtedly break out in East Asia.
Hopefully, more realist heads prevail in these foreign policy discussions. The future of humanity itself could hang in the balance if there is no course reversal in this instance.
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