Only days after adopting a proposed $886 billion Fiscal Year 2024 defense budget focused on countering China’s growing military threat in the Western Pacific, key House Armed Services Committee members are returning to the United States after completing three days of unannounced conferencing with officials in Guam, Taiwan, and the Philippines.
Committee chair Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) led the bipartisan delegation of nine Congressional lawmakers, which visited Guam for several hours on June 27 before touring Taiwan June 27–28 and spending June 29 conferring with Philippines counterparts.
Rogers’ visit—the first by a sitting chair of the House Armed Services Committee to Taiwan since 1979, according to the American Institute of Taiwan—is particularly noteworthy because it comes amid calls in Congress, especially from the Senate, to boost funding for Taiwan defense either in the Fiscal Year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (FY24 NDAA), the annual defense budget, or in a supplementary defense package to be introduced later this summer or fall….