The National Interest
Date: March 31, 2018
By: Zachary Keck

Two U.S. senators are pushing the Trump administration to sell F-35 Joint Strike Fighters to Taiwan.

In a letter addressed to Trump on March 26, Sens. John Cornyn and James Inhofe urged the president to sell Taiwan the F-35B fighter jets. If that could not be arranged, Cornyn and Inhofe said Washington should sell Taipei the F-16V.

“The survivability of the F35B and modern long-range sensors could help Taiwan intercept Chinese missiles, promoting deterrence well into the next decade. The F-35B would not only provide a modern fifth generation fighter, but would also bolster their capabilities in next-generation warfare,” the two senators wrote in a letter, which was released by the U.S.-Taiwan Business Council. “However, if determined that release of the F-35B to Taiwan is premature, we hope that you will instead make available additional F-16Vs to address the quantitative and qualitative challenges confronting Taiwan’s fighter fleet.”mmended: The World’s Most Secretive Nuclear Weapons Program.

Their letter hardly came out of nowhere. Taiwan began inquiries into purchasing a F-35B—which has short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) capabilities—as early as 2002. At that time, according to Defense News, Taiwan sent the Pentagon a “request for letter of intent (LOI) and for price and availability (P&A) data on the F-35B signed by Wang Chi-lin, then director of the Defense Procurement Division of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (Taiwan’s de facto embassy in Washington).”    [FULL  STORY]