On Friday, Yui sat down again with Foreign Policy—in a rather different context. Eight months into President Donald Trump’s second term, the White House’s attitude toward Taiwan has been somewhat more ambivalent in both words and actions. Trump denied a request for Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te to transit through New York this year, and the Trump administration canceled a planned meeting in Washington with Taiwan’s defense minister in June.
The last time Foreign Policy sat down with Alexander Tah-ray Yui, he was just months into his new role as the de facto Taiwanese ambassador to Washington—officially known as Taiwan’s representative to the United States—with less than a year left in U.S. President Joe Biden’s term. Biden said on multiple occasions that the U.S. military would defend the island in the event of an attack from China, seemingly straying from a long-standing U.S. policy of “strategic ambiguity” toward Taiwan (though Biden administration officials repeatedly stressed that the policy hadn’t changed). He also signed off on more than a dozen weapons sales to Taiwan during his four years in office.
The last time Foreign Policy sat down with Alexander Tah-ray Yui, he was just months into his new role as the de facto Taiwanese ambassador
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