Trump Administration Approves F-16 Fighter Jet Sales to Taiwan

[jpak]

Source: New York Times

The Trump administration is moving forward with an $8 billion sale of F-16 fighter jets to Taiwan, American officials said Friday. The move is certain to further anger China at a time when a long-running trade war between Washington and Beijing has upended relations between the world’s two largest economies and contributed to stock market turmoil.

The State Department told Congress Thursday night, right after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had signed a memo approving the sale, officials said. Congress is not expected to object to the move. For weeks, lawmakers from both parties had accused the administration of delaying the sale to avoid jeopardizing trade negotiations or to use it as a bargaining chip.

But trade talks in Shanghai at the end of July led nowhere, and President Trump said earlier this month that the United States would impose a 10 percent tariff on an additional $300 billion worth of Chinese imports on Sept. 1. He then partly reversed himself over concerns about the impact on Americans. He decided on Aug. 13 that he would hold back on tariffs on consumer goods until after the start of the Christmas shopping season.

Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, John R. Bolton, a foreign policy hawk, has been a longtime advocate of arms sales to Taiwan and has pushed for greater United States support for its government. Some analysts suggest China could retaliate by punishing American companies with sanctions, which it did last month.

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Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/16/world/asia/taiwan-f16.html

[machoneman]

1. Huh? F-16's are old school fighter planes, unlike the new F-35. Why....

do they want them?

[jpak]

2. They are still better than mainland Chinese combat aircraft

and I don't think we will ever sell them F-35s.

[EX500rider]

3. When your main fighter's are Mirage-2000's, F-5's and F-16A's...

...late model new F-16V Block 70/72's would be a major step up.

[hack89]

4. The new models are extremely capable

Besides, Taiwan is full of Chinese spies. Need to protect stealth technology

[Downtown Hound]

5. Bingo!

There might come a day when we sell Taiwan the F-35. But that won't happen until long after China has developed enough stealth on their own to where it wouldn't matter.

[MosheFeingold]

8. Stealth is not needed

When fighting over one's one home turf.

The F-16 remains one of the best at air-to-air combat. It is also relatively cheap and available in quantity.

And quantity has a quality all its own, to paraphrase Stalin.

[BlueMississippi]

6. This is just to poke the Chinese

because they made Trump blink on the sanctions.

[JCMach1]

7. Good! I think we can all see what the Chinese dictator has done to the Uighurs and

Hong Kong.

Anti-democratic to the core...