Top Navy official says arms sales to Taiwan paused amid war with Iran
Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao said the U.S. pending arms sale to Taiwan has been put on hold amid the war with Iran, just one week after President Trump visited China
by Summer Lane | May 22, 2026
The U.S. Navy’s top official told members of the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee this week that a multi-billion-dollar arms sale to Taiwan was on “pause” amid the war with Iran.
“I have not heard, I have not spoken to the Taiwanese,” Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao told Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)
He continued, “However, we have done some military, foreign military sales to them. And it’s just, right now we’re doing a pause in order to make sure we have the munitions we need for Epic Fury, which we have plenty, but we’re just making sure we have everything.”
Cao said that the arms sale would continue when the Trump administration deemed it appropriate.
His comments come just one week following President Donald Trump’s state visit to Beijing, in which Chinese President Xi Jinping heavily pressured the U.S. to stay out of Taiwan.
Following the two-day summit, President Trump said he had made “no commitment either way” when it came to moving forward with the pending arms sale to Taiwan, worth about $14 billion.
Currently, the United States and Iran are deadlocked in a ceasefire. The fighting has stalled, but the Strait of Hormuz remains closed to most commercial vessels, as it is blockaded by the U.S. Navy, and the corridor itself remains vulnerable to Iranian aggression.
No deal has been reached yet with the Iranian regime. President Trump indicated on Thursday that a deal would materialize “one way or the other – they’re not going to have a nuclear weapon.”
On the issue of preserving munitions by curtailing arms sales to Taiwan, debate is plentiful. Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly (D) told CBS’s Face the Nation earlier this month that munitions have been depleted. “We’ve been briefed by the Pentagon on specific munitions. Actually, it’s been pretty detailed on Tomahawks, ATACMS, SM-3, THAAD rounds, Patriot rounds, so those interceptor rounds to defend ourselves,” he told the outlet.
He continued, “And the numbers are, I think it’s fair to say it’s shocking the how deep we have gone into these magazines, because this president got our country into this without a strategic goal, without a plan, without a timeline, and because of that, we’ve expended a lot of munitions, and that means the American people are less safe, whether it’s a conflict in the western Pacific with China or somewhere else in the world, the munitions are depleted.”
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has hotly disputed Kelly’s comments, accusing him of “falsely and dumbly” making inaccurate claims to the media, and said the Department of War’s legal counsel would review the situation.
