TAIPEI (TVBS News) — The United States denied President Lai Ching-te's (賴清德) transit through New York after China opposed the diplomatic stopover, the Financial Times reported Tuesday (July 29). Taiwan's president had planned to visit Paraguay, Guatemala, and Belize in August with brief layovers in New York and Dallas. The Office of the President (總統府) announced Monday that Lai has no travel plans due to typhoon recovery and tariff negotiations, though sources revealed the trip was scrapped after Washington refused transit permission.
The White House and State Department have not commented on the transit denial, while Taiwan's representative in the United States reiterated there are "no recent travel plans." Bonnie Glaser, an expert at the German Marshall Fund think tank, noted that President Trump aimed to avoid angering Beijing during ongoing trade negotiations. Glaser urged Trump to resist pressure from the People's Republic of China, warning that yielding would weaken deterrence against Chinese aggression.
The Trump administration recently paused new export restrictions on China to avoid disrupting trade negotiations and a potential Trump-Xi meeting. Both nations began a third round of trade talks Monday (July 28) in Stockholm, led by U.S. Treasury Secretary Besent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng. Randy Schriver, a former U.S. assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs, criticized the transit denial as reminiscent of past practices avoiding Taiwan-related actions.
Rush Doshi, a former National Security Council official for China affairs, emphasized viewing U.S. actions on Taiwan within the broader context of a softened China policy. Doshi argued that freezing export controls on China might weaken unofficial relations with Taiwan without gaining meaningful returns from Beijing. The Biden administration allowed then-President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to transit New York and Los Angeles in 2023, which drew strong protests from China. ◼