US midterm elections and Taiwan

In preparing to cast their ballots today, most Americans have not been leafing through foreign policy white papers. Rather, they have been thinking about their fuel costs, the price of groceries, rent and medical bills. The foreign policy decisions that seem far removed from domestic issues ultimately come back to affect voters in the form of rising costs at home. That is precisely what is important for Taiwan about the US midterms.

It is not that voters do not care about Iran, Ukraine, Israel or US President Donald Trump’s tariffs, but what matters most to ordinary Americans are those cost of living knock-on effects. Across the aisle, the economy is the No. 1 issue. The Iran war is seen at the pump, tariffs come through in supermarket prices and trade conflicts prevent farmers from selling their produce. International politics is still there; it has simply found another path to the ballot box.

Trump might see tariffs as negotiating tools and military action as a strategic device, but it is different for ordinary families. Their questions are simple: Would their costs be driven up, their jobs made more secure and would next year be harder than the last? Any foreign policy strategy that cannot address these questions would provoke backlash at the polls.

This is a political reality that Taiwan in particular cannot overlook. Taiwanese have long tended to gauge US support through arms sales and congressional legislation backing Taiwan, but they have paid less attention to how Taiwan’s security can be related to the everyday interests of Americans. US support is not an open-ended blank check; it depends on a domestic political coalition that must be continually maintained.

Taiwan-US relations cannot rest solely on consensus among Washington’s political elite. It must also be conveyed to the US public that maintaining peace across the Taiwan Strait is not an act of charity, but a way to reduce the costs resulting from global economic shocks, war and inflation.

Taiwan should be concerned not just with whether the US would send troops to help Taiwan in a conflict, but how to make the economic logic of preventing war across the Taiwan Strait clear to Americans. This is not about pandering to voters, but about recognizing that foreign policy must withstand democratic domestic scrutiny.

If Taiwan speaks only of its strategic importance without explaining what a breakdown in stability across the Strait would cost ordinary workers and consumers in the US, even the strongest geopolitical arguments might be lost amid the pressure of everyday economic hardship.

The same principle applies to Taiwan. When the government discusses national defense, energy and supply-chain restructuring, it cannot simply invoke the “international situation” and expect the public to bear the costs. For policies to endure, their costs and benefits must be explained.

Who bears the initial cost, who stands to benefit and how can the price of transition be reduced? Democratic politics is not about grand slogans, but about translating national strategy into everyday realities that people can accept.

The lesson is that every piece of foreign policy would ultimately affect people’s kitchens, fuel bills and paychecks. If international strategies cannot be translated into understandable benefits for people’s lives, it becomes much harder to build a lasting national consensus.

Liao Ming-hui is an assistant research fellow at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research.