WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, delivered opening remarks at a full committee hearing, “Reviewing Implementation of the Taiwan Enhanced Resilience Act and Future Opportunities for U.S.-Taiwan Cooperation.” In her remarks, Ranking Member Shaheen underscored the centrality of the U.S.-Taiwan partnership to American prosperity and global stability. She also called out steps the Trump Administration has taken to weaken deterrence in the Taiwan Strait, undermine America’s toolkit to compete with China and leave allies like Japan hanging when they stand by Taiwan. Witnesses included Dr. Rush Doshi, Assistant Professor of Security Studies at the Georgetown University Walsh School of Foreign Service; Ms. Bonnie Glaser, Managing Director of the Indo-Pacific Program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States; and Dr. Lauren Dickey, Former Senior Advisor for Taiwan at the Department of Defense, Senior Associate to the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
You can watch her opening remarks here.
“Taiwan is one of the epicenters of the highly specialized semiconductor industry,” said Ranking Member Shaheen. “It builds the advanced chips that power our AI, defense technologies and clean-energy systems. However, Taiwan is more than a semiconductor superpower. One study by the Rhodium Group found that a Chinese blockade of Taiwan could lead to a two trillion-dollar global disruption of supply chains. And that’s just a blockade. According to Bloomberg Economics, the damage from an invasion could reach ten trillion [...] dollars— roughly 10% of global GDP. So, I hope our witnesses today can help clarify what is at stake for the United States, and how China is working to undermine Taiwan.”
Ranking Member Shaheen also highlighted bipartisan action in Congress and the urgent need to build out U.S. and allied economic, diplomatic and security tools to deter Beijing.
“There is strong bipartisan support in this Committee and throughout Congress and across the national security community for Taiwan,” said Ranking Member Shaheen. “We recently passed out of committee legislation on Taiwan from Senator Risch and myself, including deploying U.S. teams to map and target PRC sanctions pressure points to deter Chinese aggression. But we need to do more. We need to strengthen economic tools to deny Beijing the revenue and technology to wage war. We need to do more in the information space where Beijing has put particular focus. And we also need to support American allies from closer defense coordination with Japan and South Korea to demonstrating a united front with our allies on sanctions and export controls.”
The Ranking Member’s remarks, as delivered, are below.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome to our witnesses today. Thank you all for being here.
Over many decades, across many administrations—Republican and Democratic alike—the U.S. has had a strong and enduring relationship with Taiwan. But today as we meet, we have a worrying backdrop. The Trump Administration has been too willing to trade national security for short-term gains. That’s a mindset that weakens our deterrence and undermines our allies. Taiwan has become an essential partner, whose technological and economic cooperation is central to American life. This hearing comes at a critical moment for that relationship.
Taiwan is one of the epicenters of the highly specialized semiconductor industry. It builds the advanced chips that power our AI, defense technologies and clean-energy systems. However, Taiwan is more than a semiconductor superpower. One study by the Rhodium Group found that a Chinese blockade of Taiwan could lead to a two trillion-dollar global disruption of supply chains. And that’s just a blockade. According to Bloomberg Economics, the damage from an invasion could reach ten trillion [...] dollars— roughly 10% of global GDP. So, I hope our witnesses today can help clarify what is at stake for the United States, and how China is working to undermine Taiwan.
There is strong bipartisan support in this Committee and throughout Congress and across the national security community for Taiwan. We recently passed out of committee legislation on Taiwan from Senator Risch and myself, including deploying U.S. teams to map and target PRC sanctions pressure points to deter Chinese aggression.
But we need to do more. We need to strengthen economic tools to deny Beijing the revenue and technology to wage war. We need to do more in the information space where Beijing has put particular focus. And we also need to support American allies from closer defense coordination with Japan and South Korea to demonstrating a united front with our allies on sanctions and export controls.
As Dartmouth’s Professor Stephen Brooks notes [...], he says coordinated sanctions with our allies give us real leverage—credible economic pressure that strengthens deterrence in the Taiwan Strait. When we act alone, chasing bilateral trade deals, we sideline that leverage and that weakness doesn’t go unnoticed.
Xi Jinping is watching how the United States responds to Russian aggression in Ukraine. Nothing could be a better deterrent to an invasion of Taiwan than defeating Putin in Ukraine and showing the world that America stands by our democratic allies. But deterrence also depends on the choices we make here at home. Delaying arms sales as the U.S. works on a trade deal with China, denying the President of Taiwan the ability to transit through the United States or imposing tariffs against Taiwan just doesn’t help.
As our SFRC report The Price of Retreat made clear, Beijing is seizing the advantage as the United States undermines its own tools to compete. With President Trump planning a visit to Beijing next year and negotiations heating up between China and the U.S., I hope today’s hearing will help clarify what this moment demands from us at home and what it will take to safeguard the United States–Taiwan relationship in the months ahead.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses.
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