Premier Cho: Cuts to special defense budget undermine military readiness

At the Cabinet's weekly meeting Thursday, Premier Cho Jung-tai received a Ministry of National Defense (MND) report on the items excluded from the government's special defense bill and their potential impact. The premier said that the Legislative Yuan's significant cuts to the proposed budget-originally set at NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.7 billion) over eight years but now capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.8 billion) for U.S. arms procurement while excluding all commercial purchases and commissioned production projects-will seriously undermine the integrity of military force development and disrupt the government's Five-Year Force Buildup Plan. This will create gaps in the nation's defense capabilities, hinder the self-reliant development of domestic industries, and lead to missed opportunities for Taiwan to integrate into the international security supply chain.

Premier Cho highlighted four key areas affected by the budget cuts: (1) command, control and decision-making; (2) all-domain situational awareness; (3) high-efficiency strike capabilities; and (4) defense resilience. In addition, the removal of equipment systems related to Taiwan-U.S. joint development and procurement programs could delay international cooperation and weaken Taiwan's self-defense posture.

In particular, the exclusion of drone systems from the budget will hamper the advancement of the unmanned vehicle industry chain, cause Taiwan to miss a critical window to build non-red supply chains, and severely diminish the nation's asymmetric warfare capabilities and defense resilience. This will also reduce investment from industry, academia and research institutions in Taiwan's drone infrastructure and talent development, impeding domestic production self-reliance and overall industry growth.

The premier further stressed that the three key focuses of the special procurement act-the "T-Dome" air and missile defense system, the AI kill chain, and defense self-reliance-are all indispensable. He therefore directed the MND to promptly address the excluded items, acting within the framework of the Constitution and the Budget Act, and consider three options: submitting a new or revised special bill, submitting a supplementary budget, or expanding the annual budget, with the goals of ensuring national security and protecting people's lives and property.