What Happened to $300 Million in Taiwan Aid? It’s Classified.

The Trump administration has classified its accounting of what happened to $300 million in military aid Congress provided for Taiwan, leaving lawmakers without a public answer about whether the money was ultimately committed after a Sept. 30 deadline, according to four people familiar with the matter.

The classification obscures the administration’s handling of the Taiwan aid money just days after President Donald Trump hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping at the White House. Lawmakers in both parties have previously voiced concerns that Trump could use U.S. security assistance for Taiwan — something the president has called “a very good negotiating chip” — as leverage in talks with Beijing.

The Trump administration undertook a broad, monthslong freeze on security aid to Taiwan after Trump’s summit with Xi in May. The frozen funds included the $300 million in foreign military financing, another $1 billion provided through the Pentagon’s Taiwan Security Cooperation Initiative and a $14 billion weapons package.

Now the classification is constraining lawmakers and aides from speaking publicly about what happened to at least one part of that assistance.

“I don’t know how to answer it without breaking the law,” Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations subcommittee responsible for the State Department budget, said when asked about the money.

The State Department submitted a required justification to Congress for its handling of the $300 million in foreign military financing, according to the four people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations. The program allows partners to purchase U.S. defense equipment.

Because the administration classified the status of the funding, it remains unclear whether officials preserved it through another mechanism or allowed it to expire on Wednesday.

The lack of transparency is colliding with a bipartisan push on Capitol Hill to keep military support flowing to Taipei, with lawmakers pressing the administration before and after Xi’s visit last week to release congressionally approved aid and move the stalled arms sales.

“I’ve been instrumental in trying to get it released,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) told The Washington Sun, adding that she would be “appalled” if security aid to Taiwan became a bargaining chip between Trump and Xi.

An Office of Management and Budget database showed Thursday that $2.2 billion in 2026 fiscal year foreign military financing, including the $300 million intended for Taiwan, had not been committed. The account also lacked the notation OMB typically uses to indicate that an apportionment includes a classified attachment.

A senior administration official said Trump has said he will make a determination on a new Taiwan arms sale package in a short time. Trump, the official said, has approved more arms sales to Taiwan than any other president in history.

A State Department spokesperson did not comment on the aid directly but noted that Trump and Secretary Marco Rubio have said U.S. policy on Taiwan “has not changed.”

“We continue standing with friends and allies across the Indo-Pacific to advance our shared prosperity, security, and values — that includes Taiwan,” the statement said.

Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, criticized the broader freeze on Taiwan security aid.

“Our security commitments to Taiwan are law, not optional,” Coons said in a statement to The Washington Sun. “In the face of Chinese aggression in the region, Congress has approved billions for Taiwan’s defense that the Trump White House blocked to appease the Chinese government. That’s not how our national security should work.”

The lack of a public accounting stands in contrast with another pot of security assistance that faced the same end-of-year fiscal deadline and bipartisan pressure on the administration.

Pentagon officials told Coons on Tuesday they had obligated nearly all of the $400 million in Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative funding, just one day before that money was set to expire.

The Taiwan funding was a flashpoint before Trump met with Xi last week. Senate Republicans led by Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, pressed the administration to move forward with all of the stalled security assistance.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi) also sharpened his public pressure on the administration this week after meeting with Alexander Yui Tah-ray, Taiwan’s diplomatic representative to the United States.

“Congress has authorized and appropriated a surge in resources to provide Taiwan with enhanced training, security assistance, and arms sales,” Wicker said in a statement. “These authorities must be used for the purposes that Congress intended.”

Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah) — who ahead of an earlier Trump-Xi summit led a bipartisan letter reaffirming congressional support for the Taiwan Relations Act and warning against unilateral changes in U.S. policy toward Taiwan — told The Sun he was unaware the administration was not publicly explaining the disposition of the funding and didn’t see any reason for it to be kept secret.

“I feel like we need to be very clear that this is a U.S. decision,” he said. “It’s not a China decision, and just as they don’t want us to meddle in their internal affairs, I don’t want them to meddle in ours.”

Beijing claims Taiwan as part of China and has long opposed U.S. arms sales to the self-governed island, which it says violate Chinese sovereignty and interfere with what it considers to be an internal matter. For decades, U.S. policy has balanced helping Taiwan maintain its self-defense while not explicitly supporting its independence.

Rupert Hammond-Chambers, president of the U.S.-Taiwan Business Council, said several proposed arms sales to Taiwan that needed to be formally notified to Congress by Oct. 1 had not been. He declined to identify the programs, but said missing the deadline would force them back into negotiations, creating added delays and, potentially, costs.

Hammond-Chambers said the summit reinforced his view that the slowdown in U.S. weapons sales to Taiwan is connected to Trump’s negotiations with Beijing. He pointed to U.S. dependence on Chinese supplies of rare earths and other critical minerals, which has given Beijing leverage as Trump has sought to maintain a “trade truce” with Xi.

The arms sales and trade talks, Hammond-Chambers said, “are inexorably intertwined.”