By Li Hsien-chi | 2025-12-26

US President Donald Trump signed the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act into law on December 2, marking the first Taiwan-focused legislation of his second term. The move is widely seen as a step toward advancing the legal grounding and normalization of US-Taiwan relations.

Often described as a strengthened version of the Taiwan Assurance Act of 2020, the law directs the State Department to review and adjust policies governing exchanges with Taipei. It requires the department to regularly identify and ease internal restrictions on official engagement and to submit reports to Congress on proposed improvements.

Beijing considers Taiwan its territory and has never ruled out seizing it by force.

Implementation mandate

At the core of the act is a requirement that the State Department comprehensively review its Taiwan-related contact guidelines at least every five years, with findings reported to Congress within 90 days. The department is required to develop specific plans to lift restrictions on mutual official visits, as well as on security and defense cooperation.

The bill was introduced in Congress by Rep. Ann Wagner, who said in a statement, "The United States stands with Taiwan, and we will not allow China to destabilize the world even more than they already have."

She described the legislation as a "strong step forward in our unwavering support for Taiwan" in its resistance to Chinese Communist Party aggression.

Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te thanked Trump on X and expressed hope for closer cooperation across all sectors to safeguard regional peace, stability and prosperity. Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung called the act "a major step forward" in what he described as the "normalization" of Taiwan-US relations.

China protests

Beijing voiced heated opposition. "The Taiwan question ... is the first red line that must not be crossed in China-US relations," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said.

He urged Washington to "stop sending any wrong signal to 'Taiwan independence' separatist forces."

Since 1979, when Washington switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing, US-Taiwan exchanges have been subject to unwritten restrictions meant to avoid diplomatic friction with China.

In 2015, a flag-raising ceremony at the residence of Taiwan's representative office in Washington drew objections from Beijing. The spokesman for the equivalent American office in Taipei asked Taiwan to ensure "that these kinds of things do not happen again."

Creeping openness

However, subsequent US legislation, including the Taiwan Travel Act and the Taiwan Assurance Act of 2020, laid the groundwork for a 2021 revision of contact guidelines intended to "encourage US government engagement with Taiwan."

The shift brought previously discreet diplomatic and military interactions into the open. Taiwanese then-envoy Hsiao Bi-khim attended the 2021 US presidential inauguration, and Taiwanese then-president Tsai Ing-wen confirmed that year that US troops had been conducting joint training on the island. Hsiao became vice-president in 2024.

Facilitating a break from Washington's past muteness on US-Taiwan interactions, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act institutionalizes the review and deregulation process. It provides a clearer blueprint for lifting long-standing self-imposed US limits on exchanges with Taiwan.

Timing's significance

Earlier US policy toward Taiwan relied largely on internal guidelines, Chen Fang-yu, an associate professor of political science at Soochow University in Taiwan, told BBC News Chinese. The new law, he said, makes Washington's commitments more explicit by adding implementation requirements and legal accountability.

"This act can be regarded as an enhanced version of the Taiwan Assurance Act of 2020," Chen said, adding that it signals Congress's intent to institutionalize regular supervision and review of US policy toward Taiwan.

Analysts pointed to the timing of the signing as politically significant. Trump signed the bill shortly after a recent phone conversation with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Ryan Fedasiuk, a researcher at the American Enterprise Institute, told Taiwan's Central News Agency, adding that the timing mattered more than the substance of the bill.

The law is "reassuring," Fedasiuk said, citing "concerns that Taiwan might become a bargaining chip in US-China negotiations." The act's five-year review requirement limits the White House's ability to "quietly place a ceiling" on US engagement with Taiwan and helps ties to develop on their own terms rather than hinging on US-China relations, he said.