Trump Says He'd be Very Unhappy if Xi Moves on Taiwan

US President Donald Trump said “it’s up to” Chinese President Xi Jinping on what China does with Taiwan, but that he would be “very unhappy” with a change in the status quo.

“He (Xi) considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing,” according to an interview Trump had with the New York Times, which was published on Thursday.

“But I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that. I hope he doesn’t do that.”

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Trump made the comments in the context of an exchange about what lessons Xi might take away from Trump’s audacious military operation in Venezuela.

Many analysts have said the ‘capture’ of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro undermines respect for international law and that Beijing could leverage Trump’s intervention to defend its territorial claims on Taiwan, as well as islands in the East and South China Seas.

Beijing has condemned Trump’s strike on Venezuela, saying it violated international law and threatened peace and security in Latin America. It also called for the US to release Maduro and his wife, who are now in New York awaiting a trial, after being accused of narco-terrorism, corruption, drug trafficking and other charges.

Trump spreading ‘the law of the jungle’

Analysts in China and Asia have also noted Washington’s further retreat from multilateral institutions, saying this is a “heavy blow to an already fractured global governance system”.

They said Trump’s decision to withdraw the US from 66 international organisations would have lasting consequences for American leadership around the world, and impacts on critical areas such as climate and security, a report by the South China Morning Post (SCMP) said on Thursday.

Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said Washington’s pullback from multilateralism was “no longer news,” but warned that it risked undermining the foundations of global governance centred on the United Nations.

Only a functioning multilateral system could prevent “the spread of the law of the jungle” and a return to “might makes right” and “force is justice”, Mao said on Thursday.

Scholars in China are also saying the previous scenarios in which Washington used to pressure China to act more decisively on climate change have been totally reversed, and that now it is the Chinese who have to encourage the Trump Administration to be more responsible.

“Now, if the world is to have any hope of timely global climate progress, Chinese leaders will need to be prepared to keep the United States engaged on climate issues despite Washington’s current retreat,” Li Shuo, director of the Asia Society Policy Institute’s China Climate Hub, was quoted as telling the SCMP.

Taiwan not posing the same threat as Venezuela

In his interview with the New York Times, Trump made clear he didn’t view Venezuela as comparable to Taiwan, as he felt the latter did not pose the same type of threat to China that the Maduro regime posed to the US.

He also repeated his belief that Xi would not make a move against Taiwan during his presidency, which ends in 2029.

“He may do it after we have a different president, but I don’t think he’s going to do it with me as president,” Trump said.

The Trump administration said in a strategy document last year that it aims to prevent conflict with China over Taiwan and the South China Sea by building up US and allies’ military power.

China views democratically governed Taiwan as its own, and Beijing has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control. Taiwan rejects Beijing’s claims.

“The Taiwan question is purely China’s internal affair, and how to resolve it is a matter purely within China’s sovereign rights,” Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for China’s embassy in Washington told Reuters.

The US has no formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, but Washington is the island’s most important international backer and is required by law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself. The issue has been an irritant in US-China relations for years.

Trump has largely avoided directly saying how he would respond to a rise in tensions over the island.

Reuters with additional inputs and editing by Jim Pollard

NOTE: Further pars were added to the text (on China’s reaction to the US withdrawing from more global bodies) and the headline amended on Jan 9, 2026.