Republican Federal Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) said he plans to introduce a new resolution this week in support of the U.S.-Taiwan Free Trade Agreement. Toomey also said he believes Washington should host a visit by Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen to further deepen U.S.-Taiwan bilateral diplomatic ties. In response, Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry said it has no plans to schedule a visit to Washington by President Tsai.
Senator Toomey of Pennsylvania said Wednesday (Nov. 18) that he views Taiwan as one of the most important friends and partners of the United States, especially in the Indo-Pacific region, during a seminar titled “U.S.-Taiwan Partnership in Challenging Times” at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative U.S. think tank. “Taiwan is also of tremendous geopolitical importance, given the ongoing great power rivalry between the United States and the Communist Chinese government on the mainland,” Toomey said at the conference.
Toomey described the world as now like two camps: on the one side, liberal and democratic governments, with rule of law and economic prosperity through a market economy, and on the other side, authoritarians, using censorship and information campaigns to systematically deny human rights abuses, corruption, and a government-controlled economic system.
“We know which side the U.S. is on,” said Toomey, “and unfortunately, the Chinese Communist Party is on the other side.”
Toomey emphasized that in an international environment where every step China takes is closely related to the security and well-being of the United States, and where Taiwan is at the tip of the spear in this contest, deepening relations between the United States and Taiwan is critical.
“I plan to introduce a resolution in the Senate this week in support of a U.S.-Taiwan free trade agreement,” said Toomey, “which should be aimed at lowering, and preferably eliminating, barriers to trade and investment.”
The “U.S.-Taiwan Partnership for Economic Prosperity Dialogue” is coming up this Friday (Nov. 20) in Washington, D.C. The Taiwanese side will be led by Economic Affairs Undersecretary Chen Zheng-Qi, who will visit the United States. The U.S. side will be led by State Department Under Secretary for Economic, Energy and Environmental Affairs Keith Krach, who visited Taiwan in September this year.
According to Reuters, Chen told the media prior to the trip that the first Partners for Economic Prosperity Dialogue discussed a wide range of topics with a macro perspective that would help establish an economic partnership between the two sides.
Taiwan is currently the tenth largest trading partner of the United States in goods. According to the International Monetary Fund, Taiwan is the world’s 20th largest economy. Toomey said this economic performance is amazing because Taiwan has a population of only 23 million, but is large enough to be a huge export market for U.S. goods and agricultural products.
“Today, half of Taiwan’s trade and 80 percent of its investment is with China or Hong Kong, and the U.S. can offer another option,” Toomey said.
Toomey, who was first elected to the Senate in 2011, has long argued for term limits for members of Congress, and his second term expires in 2022, and Toomey has said he will not seek re-election.
If Republicans maintain control of the Senate in the new Congress that begins in January, Toomey, a member of the Senate Banking Committee, is next expected to succeed fellow Senator Mike Crapo (ID) as chairman of the committee.
In a meeting earlier this year with Democratic Federal Senator Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-CA), Tumi is expected to take over the chairmanship of the committee. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) earlier this year, Senator Toomey, who co-introduced the signed Hong Kong Autonomy Act, is concerned about the growing threat posed by Beijing in the region.
“We should be clear that the Chinese Communist Party is a threatening and increasingly aggressive force. They want to impose their malevolent power and influence on their own citizens, but also on their neighbors, and even seem to be reaching out to the world,” Toomey said.
Toomey also said that the Chinese Communist Party’s “appetite for aggressiveness is growing” and that Taiwan has been on the front lines of the Communist Party’s belligerence as Xi Jinping has declared that Taiwan “must, and will be” unified with China.
Aside from the fact that this was the CCP’s historical goal in the first place, Toomey argues, another reason why China forced Taiwan to reunify with it was because “the CCP was afraid that its own people would look across the Taiwan Strait and ask a simple question. They will ask: Why can’t we live in a country and society that enjoys prosperity and economic, political, and social freedom, like Taiwan?”
“Taiwan’s existence is a danger to the Chinese Communist Party because it proves that democratic and liberal values and prosperity can flourish in a society with such close historical, linguistic, cultural, and ethnic ties to mainland China,” Toomey said.
Toomey said the United States should continue to deepen its diplomatic support for Taiwan, for example by countering and resisting the Chinese Communist Party’s exclusion of Taiwan from international organizations such as the World Health Organization. He added that the U.S. could establish regular exchanges between U.S. and Taiwanese government officials at a higher level.
“I think Washington should formally host Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen,” Toomey suggested, “We must also continue to support U.S. support for Taiwan’s self-defense capabilities, and we should continue our arms sales to Taiwan, strengthen Taiwan’s asymmetric defense strategy, include Taiwan’s military forces in U.S. and allied military exercises, and include the The U.S. military attaché in Taipei is promoted to the rank of general or admiral.”
Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson responded to this on Thursday (Nov. 19), saying that strengthening interaction and exchanges between Taiwan and the U.S. at all levels and in all fields has been a long-standing goal of joint efforts between Taiwan and the U.S., although there are no plans for President Tsai Ing-wen to visit Washington at this time.
Toomey concluded by mentioning that Beijing’s oppression of Taiwan is a threat to the Free World camp and that Taiwan is at the center of this struggle.
“No other country in the world can do this, and the United States is uniquely positioned to be the moral leader in advancing individual liberty, human rights, democratic societies, and market economies for a long time,” Toomey said. One of the reasons to pick up the pace.”
Recent Comments