The first thing that a visitor to the Taiwanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs sees is an archway flanked by two sets of flags. On the left are 12 flags belonging to Taiwan’s official diplomatic allies—Belize, Paraguay, Guatemala, Haiti, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Eswatini, Tuvalu, Palau, the Marshall Islands, and the Holy See. On the right are 13 flags belonging to Taiwan’s unofficial but arguably far more important partners—the United States, the European Union, Japan, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, and India.

It is those latter relationships—one in particular—that I was keen to discuss with Deputy Foreign Minister Chen Ming-chi when I arrived at the building one morning in late January.

The first thing that a visitor to the Taiwanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs sees is an archway flanked by two sets of flags. On the left are 12 flags belonging to Taiwan’s official diplomatic allies—Belize, Paraguay, Guatemala, Haiti, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Eswatini, Tuvalu, Palau, the Marshall Islands, and the Holy See. On the right are 13 flags belonging to Taiwan’s unofficial but arguably far more important partners—the United States, the European Union, Japan, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, and India.

It is those latter relationships—one in particular—that I was keen to discuss with Deputy Foreign Minister Chen Ming-chi when I arrived at the building one morning in late January.

The United States has always been Taiwan’s most indispensable partner, supplying it with billions of dollars of military aid even as it officially recognizes China as the sole diplomatic representative of the Chinese people.

Under the second administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, however, Taiwan—like all of Washington’s traditional allies and partners—has had to deal with increased uncertainty and unpredictability. Unlike the antagonism toward China that marked Trump’s first term in office, he has shown a greater eagerness to make deals with Chinese President Xi Jinping this time around, allowing the sale of advanced semiconductor chips to China and agreeing to visit Beijing in April of this year.

Trump’s National Defense Strategy, released in January, advocates for a shift away from “confrontation” with Beijing and toward “deconfliction and de-escalation.” The strategy doesn’t mention Taiwan at all—and neither did U.S. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby in a speech in South Korea in January, where he also repeatedly stressed that the United States does not seek to “dominate China.”

Chen isn’t worried about Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. “We don’t see it that way,” he said. “We understand that the U.S. still wants to engage with China as a way to provide reassurance, and that’s okay, but I think deeds are more important than words.”

Taipei does have a few deeds to celebrate. Trump approved the largest package of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan in December, valued at over $11 billion, and then signed a trade deal in mid-January that gave Taiwan partial tariff relief in exchange for a commitment of Taiwanese investment in the United States worth $500 billion.

When we met in January, Chen had just returned from participating in the sixth U.S.-Taiwan Economic Prosperity Partnership Dialogue, where the two governments agreed to strengthen cooperation on technology supply chains, critical minerals, and drones. “We are glad that both sides have a very good understanding of the possibility ahead of us,” he said.

A significant part of that economic cooperation is the United States “reshoring” its semiconductor chip supply chain, which Taiwan dominates in large part through the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). TSMC and other chip firms have long provided Taiwan with a so-called “silicon shield”—a centrality to the global tech supply chain that deters China from invading the island.

With TSMC already committing tens of billions of dollars to expanding its U.S. presence, and Trump and U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick demanding that 40 percent of Taiwan’s chipmaking capacity be moved to the United States (a notion that Taiwanese officials have pushed back on), I asked Chen if he was worried that U.S. policies will weaken that silicon shield and make Taiwan more vulnerable.

That elicited a wry smile. “You’ve asked the wrong person—I’m not a true believer in the silicon shield,” he said. “Taiwan has been important before semiconductors … because of geography, because of values, because of democracy. Our democracy is a hard-earned one.” Semiconductors, he said, add “another layer” to a world that’s inherently invested in ensuring stability across the Taiwan Strait.

Chen is also not perturbed by Trump’s decision to send the U.S. military into Venezuela to capture its president, Nicolás Maduro, in January, or his talk of annexing Greenland, which he pulled back from after a talk with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte.

“President Trump has a certain style with strong words, but after all that he began to negotiate among allies,” he said. Even with Trump’s approach to negotiating peace between Russia and Ukraine—a conflict that Taiwanese officials have watched closely—Chen acknowledged the “shock” to many countries of the Trump administration’s initial 28-point peace plan, which gave major concessions to Russia. But, Chen noted, the worst fears about Trump selling out Ukraine have still not come to pass months later. “Trump will raise the price high to negotiate.”

On the regime change operation in Venezuela, which  some analysts have speculated could give Beijing a ready justification to attack Taiwan, Chen said Taipei again draws a different conclusion. “On the contrary, it sends a strong signal to China that the U.S. is willing to use military means to achieve diplomatic goals,” he said. “It sends a very strong signal to Xi Jinping that the U.S. is capable and willing.”

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There are two things that Chen is worried about. One is the $40 billion defense budget proposed by Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te, which has stalled in the legislature due to pushback from the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) party. Passing the budget is “a very strong and important gesture to show that we care about our defense,” Chen said. “We are in a new era—there’s no more free ride, no more free security guarantee. If we do not invest, then probably people will just leave us there, dying alone.”

But he chalked up most of the budget fight to domestic politics as usual. “We are a democracy, and there tend to be different opinions … I think it’s time to negotiate, time to sit down and talk about our differences.”

What appears to preoccupy Chen far more is some key U.S. allies and Taiwanese partners deepening their ties with China. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer both visited Beijing this year, aiming to deepen their countries’ economic cooperation with China amid concerns about U.S. reliability.

Chen said that’s a big mistake. “We have been free riding the U.S. security guarantee for so long, so the U.S. says it’s time for all of us to share the burden,” he said. “So many countries, unfortunately, decided that they want to get closer to China as a counterbalance to the U.S. For us, it’s never been an option.”

Also “not an option,” Chen added, is hedging against U.S. unpredictability—as some speculate Taipei is trying to do by deepening its partnerships with regional allies like Japan and the Philippines. “We always like to make friends,” he said. “We are not talking about hedging against the U.S.”

For countries seeking deeper cooperation with China, Chen said, “Just ask yourself: Can you trust Xi Jinping? Just ask Zhang Youxia, can he trust Xi Jinping?” (Zhang was China’s top general who was abruptly arrested in January.) “I mean, you don’t like the United States, you have an issue with them, we understand. Even among brothers, you have differences,” he said. “But why go to your enemy? They want to destroy your way of living; they want to destroy your democracy.”

Xi, he underscored, “has never failed to disappoint.”