On March 28, 2025 a rollout ceremony took place at Lockheed Martin’s F-16 production facility in Greenville, South Carolina. Two F16V block 70 jets were ready for final testing, and the ceremony marked the formal handover to Taiwan. The Greenville ceremony was attended by Taiwan’s Defense Minister and by Taiwan’s US representative.
Taiwan does not have formal diplomatic representation in the United States. No high ranking US defense officials or counterpart to Taiwan’s Minister of National Defense Po Horng-hui was present at the ceremony.
The jets for Taiwan were part of the “Peace Phoenix Soaring” program. Taiwan was allowed to order 66 of the advanced F-16s, the first new jets from the United States since George H. W. Bush authorized 150 F-16 A/B jets to Taiwan in 1992. These original jets were stripped of their ground-attack capability, and other systems were downgraded.
It was not until 2023 that the original jets completed a US-approved upgrade program called “Peace Phoenix Rising”, rebuilding Taiwan’s original F-16s to the F-16V standard. While upgraded, the airframes are now over 30 years old and are inferior to new models.
The planned purchase of the new F-16s, at a cost of almost US$8 billion, was supposed to be completed in 2026. Except for the first two, no more jets have yet been produced by Lockheed for Taiwan. Various excuses have been made, including alleged supply bottlenecks and manufacturing issues.
The first for F-16 Vs left Greenville in March, 2026, seventeen months after the rollout. (The long delay has not been explained.) On the final leg of their journey to Taiwan, the two jets (tail numbers 6727 and 6828) departed Hickam Airfield in Hawaii but they were called back and returned to Hawaii. As of this date they are still sitting at the airfield.
No one has yet explained why the jets were called back. The story of the F-16’s so-far failed delivery to Taiwan is part of a pattern of delayed arms sales to the island.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio says that delays in selling arms to Taiwan are based on worries about shortages in US military production of needed weapons. But this logic certainly does not apply to F-16 manufacturing which Lockheed had earlier moved from Ft. Worth to Greenville.
In Greenville, Lockheed is making F-16s for Taiwan, Bahrain, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Morocco and Jordan. In 2025, the Lockheed factory delivered initial batches to Bulgaria receiving its first Block 70 aircraft in the spring, alongside ongoing fulfillment for other global buyers like Bahrain.
There were no reported delivery delays for Bulgaria, Bahrain or other customers aside from Taiwan. In the aerospace portion of the huge $20 billion Taiwan arms backlog are many critical defense systems.
For example, F-16 IRST (Infrared Search and Track) Systems that includes 55 advanced targeting and tracking pods designed to give Taiwan’s F-16s the ability to detect stealth threats such as China’s J-20 stealth fighters are delayed; MS-110 Recce Pods that support long range, high resolution digital imagery for intelligence gathering, have not been delivered; and significant backlogs of AIM-9X Block II Sidewinder air to air missiles have not been delivered plus advanced air-to-ground missiles like AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapons (JSOW), and air-launched Harpoon anti-ship missiles could be years behind schedule.
Taiwan also won’t get Mark 48 torpedoes until the end of the decade; and the NASAMS (air defense system) until 2031. Taiwan is getting Himars and has ordered 84 ATACMS missiles, the first 16 delivered in 2024 and a second batch in 2025.
There are plenty of other delays and reports that sometimes the equipment sent to Taiwan was old and damaged. In 2024, for example, the US sent Taiwan moldy body armor and pallets containing “unserviceable” equipment and ammo including machine guns.
While there are significant short supply problems and heavy demands for US weapons in Ukraine, Europe and the Middle East, Taiwan is the greatest danger zone in East Asia.
China continues to carry out continuous exercises rehearsing the components of a future quarantine or blockade, demonstrating how the PLA could surround the island, control shipping lanes, and test response timelines by the United States and Japan.
Beijing maintains relentless pressure through increased Coast Guard patrols, civil-military fleet integration, and continuous air-and-naval movements near the island. It flies some of its most modern aircraft, including fighters and bombers and reconnaissance platforms, continuously around Taiwan.
Taiwan gets most of its weapons from the United States. The Taiwan Relations Act (1979) mandates that the United States “will make available to Taiwan such defense articles and defense services in such quantity as may be necessary to enable Taiwan to maintain a sufficient self-defense capability.”
Successive administrations have found significant wiggle room in determining what to sell to Taiwan, when to sell it, and what conditions might be attached. For example, when AIDC (Taiwan’s biggest aircraft maker) wanted to produce an indigenous fighter aircraft, the US made sure that the new jet was limited in range and capabilities.
The top issue is politics, specifically US-China relations. China pushes back strongly every time there is an arms sale for Taiwan. Making matters worse is the US conflict with Iran and support of Ukraine against Russia. These wars eat up US defense stocks and put heavy demands on the US Air Force and Navy.
One impact: the US took the carrier USS George Washington, normally based at Fleet Activities Yokosuka in Japan as part of the US 7th Fleet, out of the Indo-Pacific through the Singapore Strait and into the US Central Command (CENTCOM) area of operations.
This left the Far East without a US aircraft carrier, which has long been regarded as critical to defending Korea, Japan and Taiwan.
This week’s visit of President Xi Jinping to Washington highlights Washington’s interest in reducing tensions with China, facilitating trade and avoiding conflict. But the more Washington aims at calming the waters with China, the less likely Taiwan is to get the arms it needs to defend its island.
If Taiwan cannot hold out against an outright attack, the US will find it exceedingly hard to help the island survive.
Stephen Bryen is a former US deputy undersecretary of defense and special correspondent at Asia Times. This article was first published on his Weapons and Strategy Substack and is republished with permission.
