China’s neighbors are buying US weapons Washington isn’t delivering

China’s neighbors are buying US weapons Washington isn’t delivering

Even though the United States views these weapons sales as integral to deterring China from attacking Taiwan, some of the deals were publicly announced as far back as 2017.

The reasons – government delays, supply chain issues and production requirements – are numerous, and the problem won’t be easy to fix, Rep. Mike McCaul, R-Texas, the ranking member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told Defense News.

The U.S. government has approved the sale of 10 weapons systems Taiwan has yet to receive – some of which are not slated for delivery until the end of the decade.

The United States has flooded billions of dollars in weapons into Ukraine, including items that are part of Taiwan’s backlog, such as Harpoon anti-ship missiles, Stinger anti-aircraft missiles and High Mobile Artillery Rocket Systems.

For example, several Middle Eastern and eastern European countries are ahead of Taiwan in Lockheed Martin’s F-16 production queue. In 2019, the State Department approved an $8 billion Taiwan sale for 66 F-16s, but Taipei does not expect to receive the aircraft until 2026.

Saudi Arabia is still ahead of Taiwan on the priority list in some cases,” Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., told Defense News ahead of a July meeting with Taiwan’s Washington envoy. “We need to take a look at that.”

Israel Wins Big in Washington

$1.2 billion more is on the way!

BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • JUNE 8, 2021

Now let me get this straight. A nation bullies and harasses a much smaller neighbor which eventually leads that neighbor to strike back with largely home-made weapons. The larger and more powerful country, armed with state of the art killing machines, attacks its basically unarmed opponent and kills hundreds of civilians, including a large number of children. It also destroys billions of dollars of infrastructure in the poorer and weaker neighbor. Almost immediately after the fighting stops, senior legislators from a third nation that had nothing to do with the war apart from supplying the larger nation with weapons appeared on the scene and promoted the lie that the larger nation had actually been the victim of an unprovoked attack by the “terrorists” running the small nation. They did so publicly while meeting with and endorsing the actions of the government officials from the large nation, which, it would seem, is about to be investigated by an international body for war crimes. They were joined by an ex-officio former foreign minister of the third nation who likewise echoed the propaganda being put out by the large nation. Several of them also promised to provide military assistance worth $1 billion so the large nation could rearm itself.

Israel Wins Big in Washington