Taiwan just got its first new fighter jets in decades
2 hours ago · 2 October 2026Share
An F-16 Viper takes off from Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico, on March 3, 2023. File photo. Tech. Sgt. Victor J. Caputo · Public domain
Taiwan just got its first two new fighter jets from America.
And it's been 29 years since that last happened.
The jets landed today at Chihhang Air Base in Taitung County, on Taiwan's southeast coast. Midday, local time. Clear sky.
They're F-16Vs, built by Lockheed Martin. And they're the first two of 66 Taiwan ordered.
Seven years ago.
So why now? Well, the timing says a lot.
This delivery lands about a week after Donald Trump sat down with Xi Jinping, China's president, at the White House in Washington. Not Beijing. Some reports got that wrong. That summit ran from 23 to 25 September. Trump's only trip to Beijing to see Xi this year was back in May.
And here's the twist. It was in May, right after that Beijing visit, that Trump said he was holding back a separate $14 billion arms package for Taiwan. He called it a very good negotiating chip. He did later approve a smaller, separate $11 billion package, in December last year.
So the big package is still on ice. But these two jets, from an older order, just went ahead anyway.
That older order is worth $8 billion. Approved back in 2019, in Trump's first term. Taiwan calls the programme Peace Phoenix Soaring. It's spent NT$247.2 billion on it since 2020. Once it's finished, Taiwan's F-16 fleet passes 200 jets.
The jets were meant to arrive in early September, after refuelling stops in Hawaii and Guam. Local media say the planes headed back to Hawaii not long after leaving for Guam. Nobody has explained why.
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Radar station of Taitung Air Base in Taiwan. File photo. CEphoto, Uwe Aranas · CC BY-SA 3.0
Wellington Koo, Taiwan's Defence Minister, told reporters in Taipei more jets are coming soon. He gave no details. He says quote "we won't only have delivered these two by year-end". He'd already warned it would be tough for Lockheed Martin to deliver all 66 by the end of this year.
Koo also says quote "China's intention to annex Taiwan by force has never changed".
China says Taiwan belongs to it. It's told Washington for years to stop arming the island. Today, China's foreign ministry didn't respond when asked about the jets.
And there's a ceiling here too. America still won't send Taiwan its most advanced jets, the F-22 or the F-35. The F-16V is the best Washington will give.
A US State Department official says America continues standing with friends and allies across the Indo-Pacific for shared prosperity, security and values, and that this includes Taiwan.
One American official says it's increasingly likely that bigger $14 billion package gets split into smaller shipments instead, including Patriot air defence systems, to keep China's response manageable.
And US officials now think a Chinese invasion of Taiwan before Taiwan's next presidential election is increasingly unlikely.
People showed up to watch. Kimi Chi, a salesman from Taichung, drove through the night to photograph the landing. Eric Chan, a former Air Force serviceman, says the jets will play an important defensive role against China.
Su Tzu-yun, a military expert at Taiwan's Institute for National Defense and Security Research, calls the F-16V a valuable addition to Taiwan's air force against China's military threat.
So what don't we know? Why the jets turned back to Hawaii. When the other 64 arrive. Koo hasn't given a timetable beyond promising more by year-end.
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