KMT Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun, continuing the Washington leg of her U.S. tour, met June 10 with members of Congress including Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT), House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast (R-FL), Reps. John Rose (R-TN) and Chuck Fleischmann (R-TN), and Democrat Thomas Suozzi (NY), reports Focus Taiwan, the English-language branch of Taiwan’s official news agency.
Discussion centered on Taiwan’s defense budget, U.S. arms purchases, and energy policy. Cheng told lawmakers the KMT is not opposed to U.S. arms procurement—KMT legislators prioritized passage of the NT$780 billion special defense budget in May—but insists that spending follow due process and take into account national economic priorities.
She said some U.S. lawmakers expressed “frustration” with the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) anti-nuclear stance and “welcomed” the KMT’s support for nuclear power, where she hopes for deeper U.S.-Taiwan technology cooperation. Taiwan’s last operating reactor was shut down in May 2025, completing the nuclear exit the DPP initiated after its 2016 electoral victory.
Her other plans in Washington include closed-door sessions at three think tanks, including CSIS; a visit to the American Institute in Taiwan’s (AIT) headquarters; a banquet with overseas Taiwanese June 11; and a press availability June 12. Cheng told the South China Morning Post that she is willing to meet with President Trump, framing her mission as briefing Americans on her April meeting with Xi Jinping and helping the United States avoid “an avoidable war.” The AIT visit is notable in itself: Washington’s unofficial embassy for Taiwan affairs receiving the opposition leader whom President Lai has refused to meet—a point Cheng made June 8 at the Asia Society: Taipei and Beijing are far apart, yet she met Xi; she and Lai are minutes apart, yet no meeting.
