By Ben Blanchard
TAIPEI, Sept 19 (Reuters) - US defence tech firm Anduril's founder Palmer Luckey said on Saturday that President Donald Trump's delay in approving arms sales to Taiwan is affecting its business and that he has discussed this with Trump.
The $14 billion package for Taiwan has been awaiting Trump's approval for months. After a May summit in Beijing with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Trump said he was holding it in abeyance and described it as a "very good negotiating chip".
China claims
democratically governed Taiwan as its own, an assertion Taipei rejects. The issue of Taiwan is likely to be high on Xi's agenda when he meets Trump in Washington next week.
Speaking to reporters in Taipei where he attended a defence forum with Taiwan President Lai Ching-te, Luckey said he did not know the status of the arms package.
"It's definitely affecting the business in that our business with Taiwan would be in a different place if you had that $14 billion moving forward," he said, declining to give details about what was being delayed for the company.
DRONES RESHAPE WARFARE
Anduril, whose Altius drone is used by Taiwan, has become one of Silicon Valley's hottest defence bets as drones reshape warfare in Ukraine and the Middle East and Trump pushes the Pentagon to adopt cutting-edge technologies to counter China.
Luckey, whom China sanctioned in December for selling weapons to Taiwan, said one of the problems in delaying the package was that it had a broader, longer-lasting impact. "It's that as long as that's stuck, you don't have continued forward progress in other areas," he said.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside office hours.
China has repeatedly told the US to stop selling weapons to Taiwan and has sanctioned numerous US companies that sell arms to the island. The US is bound by law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself, though Trump has called that commitment into question.
Luckey said he had discussed the issue of Taiwan arms sales with Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. He said the administration was open to hearing from people on the issue but aware of the fallout that could come from selling more weapons to Taiwan, such as China using its leverage with rare earths crucial for tech companies.
"And so I've heard people say, shouldn't he just approve the deal and damn the consequences? But he's getting briefed by other people who are not me, and they're saying, 'If you do this, here's what's going to happen to American consumers'," Luckey said.
"He has to weigh all of those things. He's in a really difficult, difficult situation," Luckey added, referring to Trump.
Lai, who shook hands with Luckey at the forum's start, has made drones a central part of Taiwan's military modernisation.
Last year, Taiwan unveiled its first missile to be jointly made with a US company, Anduril's Barracuda-500, an autonomous, low-cost cruise missile.
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard in Taipei; Editing by William Mallard)
