Taiwan Is Betting Everything on Washington — and the Odds Are Shifting

The Strait of Hormuz is currently hotter than the Taiwan Strait. As Iran aggressively mines the vital waterway and chokes off oil tanker traffic, U.S. forces are massing in the Persian Gulf. With South Korea's THAAD and Patriot missile defense systems rapidly redeployed to the Middle East and no ceasefire in sight, 13 days into the conflict, the region is sliding deeper into chaos.

As the United States finds itself stretched across multiple global fronts, a critical question demands an answer in Taipei: Is President Lai Ching-te’s administration willing to examine the profound risks of placing every strategic bet on Washington?

A Hornets' Nest at a Global Energy Chokepoint

The Strait of Hormuz controls roughly 20% of the global oil supply. Since the U.S.-Israel-Iran conflict erupted, international crude prices have spiked above $110 per barrel. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has warned that any vessel attempting to transit the strait risks attack, putting the world on notice to prepare for oil at $200 a barrel. （Related： Taiwan Unveils Next-Phase Quantum Strategy, Aims for Key Role in Global Supply Chain ｜ Latest ）

Following U.S. President Donald Trump's claim that American forces destroyed 16 Iranian minelaying vessels—and his vow of a "twenty-fold" response—Iran has accelerated its mining of the waterway.

The practical effect has been devastating. Daily tanker traffic has plummeted from roughly 70 vessels to single digits, major shipping companies have entirely rerouted away from the Persian Gulf, and insurers are refusing to cover passage.

The killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has not brought resolution. His son and successor, the hardliner Mojtaba Khamenei, has pledged unrelenting revenge and a continued blockade. By expanding its target set to include oil production infrastructure, Iran has adopted a scorched-earth posture designed to inflict maximum economic pain. Despite deploying the 82nd Airborne Division and multiple carrier strike groups, Washington has yet to find an exit ramp from a conflict it initially expected to win swiftly.

Locked on the Front Line of a Multi-Front Stretch

The energy market disruption—prompting Japan, Germany, and the U.K. to release strategic petroleum reserves to mitigate the worst oil shock since the 1970s—is only the most visible dimension of the crisis. （Related： Taiwan Unveils Next-Phase Quantum Strategy, Aims for Key Role in Global Supply Chain ｜ Latest ）

More consequential for Taiwan is America's emerging global military overextension. The U.S. is now simultaneously managing three high-intensity theaters: the war in Ukraine, the escalating Middle East conflict, and the persistent Indo-Pacific challenge posed by China.

No military can sustain peak readiness across all three indefinitely. The redeployment of THAAD and Patriot systems from South Korea to the Middle East vividly demonstrates the strategic trade-offs Washington is being forced to make in real time.

Against this backdrop, the Lai administration has moved closer to Washington, not further. Taiwan has committed a defense budget of NT$1.25 trillion and restructured its military modernization around the "AI Ten Major Constructions" framework to align with U.S. preferences. The administration has staked nearly all its strategic capital on the assumption that American commitments will hold.

Three Unspoken Strategic Risks

Geopolitical analysts note that Taiwan's current strategic assumption rests on at least three critical vulnerabilities:

Trump's rhetoric on Iran has lurched between threats of a ground invasion and claims of tactical success. More significantly, with a Trump visit to Beijing expected by the end of March, Taiwan will almost certainly be on the agenda. If the cost of Middle East entanglement exceeds Taiwan's perceived strategic value—primarily its semiconductor industry—the partnership could be repriced without notice.

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What's more, Taiwan's defense planning has become so deeply integrated with U.S. global strategy that it has effectively surrendered its strategic autonomy. If American arsenals are depleted by Middle East operations and assets are redeployed to cover other theaters, Taiwan faces a potential defense vacuum that it has no independent capacity to fill.

Finally, while the Lai administration has recently adjusted its language to include "mainland" and "cross-strait" framing, there has been no substantive reduction in tension with Beijing. The combination of hard alignment with Washington and near-zero political engagement with China leaves Taiwan with no fallback position.

The human cost of this political rigidity was recently highlighted when Taiwanese citizens, stranded in Istanbul during the crisis and facing days of flight cancellations, turned to the Chinese embassy for evacuation assistance. The Lai government condemned the episode as a Chinese "cognitive warfare" operation, with pro-government commentators labeling the evacuees as Beijing sympathizers. Critics argue this response reflects a hardening posture that carries costs well beyond diplomacy.

A Strong Hand Played Badly?

The parallels between the Strait of Hormuz and the Taiwan Strait are stark. Both are critical global transit corridors at the intersection of great-power rivalry. However, the Taiwan Strait's added complexities of sovereignty claims make its potential destabilization even more globally consequential. （Related： Taiwan Unveils Next-Phase Quantum Strategy, Aims for Key Role in Global Supply Chain ｜ Latest ）

The Hormuz crisis exposes a harsh reality: American strategic attention is not fixed; it migrates toward the most acute crisis. Taiwan once held a flexible hand in navigating between major powers, but under successive Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administrations, that space has significantly narrowed.

Today, Taipei pins its security hopes primarily on the "Taiwan Dome" (T-Dome) layered defense architecture, centered on the very Patriot and THAAD-equivalent systems that the U.S. has just demonstrated it will redeploy when a more urgent crisis demands them. If America finds itself as overstretched in the Indo-Pacific as it currently is in the Middle East, no amount of political messaging will substitute for the military capacity that has been removed.

Taiwan once had options. The question now is whether it still does—and whether its government is willing to ask. （Related： Taiwan Unveils Next-Phase Quantum Strategy, Aims for Key Role in Global Supply Chain ｜ Latest ）