Huge US arms package deal for Taiwan contains HIMARS rocket methods, howitzer artillery, antitank missiles, and drones.
Published On 18 Dec 2025
The United States has authorized $11.1bn in arms gross sales to Taiwan, considered one of Washington’s largest-ever weapons packages for the self-ruled island, which Beijing has promised to unify with mainland China.
The US State Department introduced the deal late on Wednesday throughout a nationally televised handle by President Donald Trump.
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Weapons within the proposed sale embrace 82 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, and 420 Army Tactical Missile Systems, or ATACMS – price greater than $4bn – defence methods which might be much like what the US had been offering Ukraine to defend towards Russian aerial assaults.
The deal additionally contains 60 self-propelled howitzer artillery methods and associated gear price greater than $4bn and drones valued at greater than $1bn.
Other gross sales within the package deal embrace navy software program valued at greater than $1bn, Javelin and TOW missiles price greater than $700m, helicopter spare components price $96m and refurbishment kits for Harpoon missiles price $91m.
In a collection of separate statements asserting particulars of the weapons deal, the Pentagon mentioned the gross sales served US nationwide, financial and safety pursuits by supporting Taiwan’s persevering with efforts to modernise its armed forces and to keep up a “credible defensive functionality”.
Taiwan’s defence ministry and presidential workplace welcomed the information whereas China’s international ministry didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark from the Reuters information company.
Washington’s enormous sale of arms to Taiwan will probably infuriate China, which claims Taiwan is a part of its territory and has threatened to make use of pressure to convey it beneath its management.
“The United States continues to help Taiwan in sustaining adequate self-defence capabilities and in quickly constructing robust deterrent energy,” Taiwan’s defence ministry mentioned in a press release.
Taiwan presidential workplace spokesperson Karen Kuo mentioned Taiwan would proceed to reform its defence sector and “strengthen whole-of-society defence resilience” to “display our dedication to defend ourselves, and safeguard peace via energy”.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office mentioned on Wednesday that it opposed efforts by the US Congress to cross payments “associated to Taiwan and firmly opposes any type of navy contact between the US and Taiwan”.
“We urge the US to abide by the one China precept and the provisions of the three Sino-US joint communiques : Stop ‘arming Taiwan’, cease reviewing related payments, and cease interfering in China’s inner affairs,” the workplace’s spokesperson Zhu Fenglian mentioned in a press release.
Zhu mentioned Taiwan’s political leaders had been pursuing “independence”, and had been “prepared to let exterior forces flip the island right into a ‘struggle porcupine’,” which might end result within the inhabitants turning into “cannon fodder” and “slaughtered at will, which is despicable”.
Taiwan’s President William Lai Ching-te final month introduced a $40bn supplementary defence finances, to run from 2026 to 2033, saying there was “no room for compromise on nationwide safety”.
