Statues of soldiers on the Bada Tower are seen in Kinmen, Taiwan, on October 28, 2025. I-HWA CHENG/AFP/AFP via Getty Images

Days before President Donald Trump departed for Asia where he will sit down with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in South Korea on Thursday for their first in-person meeting of his second term, the president refused to count out the possibility of America’s position on Taiwan getting tangled in US-China trade talks.

“We’re going to be talking about a lot of things. I assume that’s going to be one of the things, but I’m not going to talk about that now,” Trump said when asked about reports that China may pressure the US to oppose Taiwan’s independence in exchange for a larger trade deal.

The refusal to definitively count out Taiwan becoming a pawn in trade talks betwe

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