Three congressional officials said the F-16 sales were delayed after trade advisers appealed to Mr. Trump. One of the officials, who works for a senior Republican lawmaker, said he expected Mr. Bolton and perhaps Mr. Pompeo to press Mr. Trump this week to approve the sales, though Mr. Pompeo leaves for Thailand on Tuesday.
That official compared Mr. Trump’s reluctance to embrace the sales to the White House’s hesitation to impose sanctions on Turkey over its purchase of the Russian S-400 antiaircraft system. Mr. Trump has shown an affinity for strongman leaders, whether it is Mr. Xi or President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey or President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
“Using Taiwan as a bargaining chip in our economic relationship with China plays right into Beijing’s hands and only leaves Taiwan more vulnerable to Chinese coercion,” said Kelly E. Magsamen, the Pentagon’s top Asia-Pacific policy official at the end of the Obama administration. “It’s Taipei’s worst nightmare. It means they could be on the table in bigger ways.”
Taiwan has an aging fleet of F-16s, and had asked to buy new ones more than a decade ago. Neither President George W. Bush nor President Barack Obama approved the sales, but the Obama administration decided in 2011 to refurbish Taiwan’s existing fleet. At the time, Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, where the F-16s were made, said Mr. Obama’s decision marked “a sad day in American foreign policy.”
In April, Lockheed Martin announced it had moved F-16 production to South Carolina, the home state of Senator Lindsey Graham, a vocal Republican supporter of Mr. Trump, though the two sometimes clash on foreign policy.
Tensions between China and Taiwan have been rising this month.
President Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan, seen as an adversary by Communist Party leaders in Beijing, hosted a reception for United Nations officials on July 11 in New York on a trip to visit Caribbean nations, and stopped in Colorado on her way home. On July 14, Beijing announced that it would carry out military exercises near the Taiwan Strait.
The United States has been sending naval ships through the Taiwan Strait about once each month in freedom-of-navigation actions. In April, a French warship passed through, in a rare move encouraged by the United States.