President Lai Ching-te of Taiwan had planned to make brief stops in New York and Dallas next month, en route to and from Latin America, hoping to demonstrate the island’s strong ties with the United States in defiance of China.
But the Trump administration, which is focused on delicate talks with Beijing over trade and a possible summit, told Mr. Lai to cancel his proposed stopover in New York, according to two officials familiar with the plans, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private discussions between the two governments. Mr. Lai canceled his whole trip.
The hints of tension between Taipei and Washington come at a sensitive moment for Mr. Lai. He suffered a serious setback over the weekend when a sweeping recall campaign aimed at removing 24 opposition lawmakers failed to dislodge any of them. Taiwan is also among the economies facing a Friday deadline for tariff negotiations with the United States.
Mr. Trump’s desire for steady relations with China, and potentially to secure a summit with President Xi Jinping, appeared to influence his administration’s position on Mr. Lai’s travel plans, one of the officials said. Mr. Trump has said he is open to visiting China to meet with Mr. Xi.
Confirmation of Mr. Lai’s travels would have riled China, which held trade negotiations with Mr. Trump’s team in Stockholm this week. China considers Taiwan to be part of its territory and sees the United States’ support for Taiwan as meddling in a domestic issue. Beijing routinely objects to Taiwanese leaders’ visits abroad, particularly to the United States.
Matthew Pottinger, who was the longest-serving deputy national security adviser in the first Trump administration, criticized the apparent decision by American officials to “bend over backwards” in the face of Chinese objections to transit stops by the Taiwanese leader. He noted that such visits were common during the first Trump term — he himself had met with the Taiwanese president on a visit to New York — and during the Biden administration.
“Beijing will pocket this concession and ask for more,” Mr. Pottinger said.
According to the two officials familiar with the planning, Mr. Lai called off the trip after Trump administration officials told him to revise his itinerary for the United States, and, in particular, to forgo the visit to New York, which was viewed as more high profile. The news about the Trump administration’s objections to Mr. Lai’s travel plans was earlier reported by The Financial Times.
On Monday evening Mr. Lai’s spokeswoman, Karen Kuo, said that the president had no plans to travel soon. Mr. Lai needed to focus on dealing with damage in southern Taiwan from a typhoon, as well as trade talks with the Trump administration, Ms. Kuo said. She said the reports of U.S. obstructions were “inaccurate” and “purely speculative.”
While Mr. Lai’s office had never publicly confirmed the trip, three Taiwanese officials had in recent days and weeks privately described his plans to stop in New York and Dallas as part of his travels to Paraguay, Guatemala and Belize, three of Taiwan’s diplomatic partners in Latin America.
David Sacks, a fellow for Asia studies at the Council on Foreign Relations who studies U.S.-Taiwan relations, pointed out that such U.S. stops were coordinated with Washington. “The idea that Taiwan would plan a trip for its president to visit three of its diplomatic partners while transiting through the United States, all without approval from senior American officials, strains credulity,” he said.
The White House National Security Council did not reply to a request for comment. Tammy Bruce, a State Department spokeswoman, told reporters on Tuesday that because Taiwan had not announced any travel plans by Mr. Lai, any discussion about it was “a hypothetical.”
Mr. Lai’s predecessor as president, Tsai Ing-wen, visited New York in 2023, during the Biden administration.
Ms. Tsai also met in California with Kevin McCarthy, then the speaker of the House, the third-ranking post in the U.S. government. That was the highest-level in-person meeting for a leader of Taiwan in the United States since Washington switched diplomatic relations from Taiwan to the People’s Republic of China in 1979.
The United States maintains political, economic and security ties with Taiwan, and allows the island’s president to make stops on the way to and from other countries — but Washington has sometimes set limits. In 2006, President Chen Shui-bian canceled a plan to travel through the United States after Washington denied him permission to stop in New York.
Taiwanese officials had made arrangements for Mr. Lai to give a speech in New York, and he was expected to attend an exhibition of Taiwanese technology and products in Dallas, according to two researchers who had heard about the plans from diplomats.
Asked about the reports that the Trump administration had blocked Mr. Lai’s plans for visiting the United States this time, a spokesman for the Chinese government’s Taiwan affairs office reiterated that Beijing “adamantly opposes” any such visits at any time.
Amy Chang Chien is a reporter and researcher for The Times in Taipei, covering Taiwan and China.
Chris Buckley, the chief China correspondent for The Times, reports on China and Taiwan from Taipei, focused on politics, social change and security and military issues.
Edward Wong reports on global affairs, U.S. foreign policy and the State Department for The Times.
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