Karishma Vaswani, Columnist

Taiwan Shouldn’t Be Trade Bait in a US-China Deal

May 13, 2026 at 6:00 PM UTC

Karishma Vaswani is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Asia politics with a special focus on China. Previously, she was the BBC's lead Asia presenter and worked for the BBC across Asia and South Asia for two decades.

A grand bargain?
Photographer: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images

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The first rule when dealing with China is to know which chips are too precious to bargain away. Here’s hoping President Donald Trump recognizes that Taiwan is one of them.

Using the island claimed by Beijing as trade bait would be a strategic mistake. It’s a central node in America’s security architecture in Asia — a key link in the First Island Chain that constrains China’s military reach and reassures American allies. It’s also a global supplier of advanced semiconductors that form the foundation of booming industries such as artificial intelligence.