The U.S. is in the final stages of approving nearly $2 billion in security aid to the Indo-Pacific, one part of a broader effort to help countries defend against an increasingly aggressive China.
The package includes $1.2 billion for Taipei, $500 million for Manila and around $300 million to spread around other partners, such as Vietnam, parts of South Asia and island nations in the Pacific. The numbers aren’t yet final, since the administration is still briefing Congress, and lawmakers are allowed input. But the intent is to spend almost all of the $2 billion in Foreign Military Financing — or security assistance funded by the U.S. — passed for the region this April, said a senior State Department official.
To discuss the plans for this aid, which hasn’t yet been reported, Defense News spoke with Congressional aides, the State official and other people familiar with the discussions. Several were granted anonymity, either because they weren’t allowed to speak to the press or because of the sensitivity of the topic. Together, they described a moment of urgency for the U.S. on multiple fronts.
The first is to fortify its partners. At the start of the summer, China launched large military drills around Taiwan as a “punishment” for a presidential address that Beijing considered too pro-independence. Weeks later, members of the Chinese Coast Guard intercepted Filipino ships on their way to resupply a naval outpost and injured eight sailors. The attack toed a “red line” on what Manila would consider an act of war.
It’s also part of an effort to strengthen this administration’s work in Asia during the last six months of President Joe Biden’s first, and perhaps only, term. A bevy of U.S. officials — from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs to top members of the National Security Council — are visiting the region this week to discuss security ties. America’s Secretary of Defense and Secretary of State will soon follow for meetings in Tokyo and Manila, where they plan to announce the $500 million in aid for the Philippines.
“The urgency has grown as the [People’s Republic of China] threat has grown,” the State official said.
While Foreign Military Financing, or FMF, can take years to deliver, the official said their goal was for aid to arrive within six to 12 months. For Taiwan, the assistance will go to the new administration’s “porcupine” style defense strategy, aimed at making the island harder to invade. This includes training for the Taiwanese military and maritime capabilities, the State official said.
Top of the list for the Philippines will be equipment to help defend against China’s bullying in the South China Sea. The official wouldn’t say what specific weapons either nation would purchase, though a Congressional aide said both would likely be for “asymmetric” systems, which often means missiles, drones or commercial-style arms.
Neither the Philippines’ nor Taiwan’s embassy in Washington would comment for this story.
‘Pump it up’
Largely because of threats from China, both Taipei and Manila are rushing to upgrade their militaries. Taiwan is already waiting on the delivery of $19 billion in other American arms it purchased — much of it F-16 fighter jets. The Philippines, meanwhile, is bulking its force to take on larger missions, like defending territory rather than countering terrorism.
“We need to really pump it up as quickly as we can,” Jose Romualdez, Manila’s ambassador to Washington, told reporters in late June.
The $500 million in support is also a huge vote of confidence from the U.S. Last year, the Philippines only received $40 million in such aid, and officials in Washington have before been skeptical that the country’s military is ready for more.
“There have been longstanding concerns about how much the Philippines can absorb,” said Bonnie Glaser, an expert on the region at the German Marshall Fund think tank.
A group of U.S. officials traveled to Manila in early June, shortly before the crisis in the South China Sea, where they discussed how the Philippines would spend the money and what support it needed, according to the Congressional aide and State official. Both sides ended up agreeing to different steps.
At the same time, America and the Philippines are also agreeing to a shared set of priorities, which the State official said they will likely announce during the summit later in July. This “roadmap” will help guide Manila’s military modernization for the next five to 10 years. The idea is to finish much of this logistical work ahead of time so that the Philippines can move faster once it gets the funding, the official said.
Romualdez, the ambassador, wouldn’t say whether his country also wanted weapons directly shipped from U.S. stocks, a much faster route. The Pentagon has $1.9 billion to replace any inventories sent to partners in the Pacific, though most of that will go to Taiwan, America’s top priority in the region.
“The Department of Defense supports the Administration’s efforts to utilize the significant funding for the Indo-Pacific region provided in the National Security Supplemental that Congress passed this spring,” a Pentagon spokesperson said in a statement, without confirming the aid package. “We also welcome continued actions by U.S. allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific region to invest in their own capabilities, their defense ties with each other and their relationships with the United States.”
‘At stake’
The new administration in Taiwan is only two months into office and trying to reform its military: making exercises less scripted and giving more authority to junior officers, similar to the American system. But they’re doing so as the threat from China continues to evolve, particularly in the “gray zone,” or military actions that fall short of war.
“Most of our weapons are aimed at providing munitions so that they can stop the [People’s Liberation Army] from landing on the beach,” said Glaser, at the German Marshall Fund. “But that’s not helping them to deal with the growing [Chinese] coast guard threat.”
Nor will more arms sales please Beijing.
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced this week that it was suspending arms control talks with the United States due to objections over American weapons sales to Taiwan, though Glaser said the discussions were cut soon after Taiwan’s new president spoke in May.
Taiwan’s political leaders are reeling this week after an interview with Bloomberg in which former President Donald Trump said that Taiwan needs to pay America for any military protection.
Zack Cooper, an Asia expert at the American Enterprise Institute, saw the comments as an omen. A second Trump administration may keep selling weapons to Taiwan, he said, but isn’t likely to fund any with American dollars.
“This is the beginning of a ramp up for the Philippines but it may be the last significant tranche for Taiwan,” Cooper said. “And we just started FMF for Taiwan.”
The administration plans to divide the remaining $300 million in aid for the region among other U.S. partners, according to the congressional aide and State official. Among the goals are to help wean countries off Russian military equipment, help island nations monitor their surrounding waters and perhaps also have others partner with the U.S. to build arms.
A small portion will be leftover, but the official expected Congress would approve the “vast majority” of the FMF funding in around the next two weeks.
Both the congressional aide and multiple people familiar with the deliberations said that the administration debated at first whether to use more of the funding to counter Russian arms. While there was always agreement that most of the money should help countries defend against China, the amount slated for the Philippines wasn’t always so high. The visit by U.S. officials to Manila in June helped ease those concerns.
“There was a lot of political pressure within the bureaucracy to support the Philippines,” said the congressional aide.
That pressure extends to Capitol Hill. This April, a bipartisan pair of senators introduced a bill to give Manila $500 million a year in Foreign Military Financing for the next five years. Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, visited the Philippines in late May and later told Defense News that the country should be the second priority for American aid in the region.
And just this week, the top Republicans on the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees sent a letter to the Biden administration urging a show of support for the Philippines after last month’s standoff with China.
The administration will soon have the FMF aid to show.
“I can’t imagine a partner that needs greater investment in their military modernization than than the Philippines, and a partner that is more willing and able to work with us on this,” the State Department official said. “They see what’s at stake.”
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