Polling two days ahead of the election conducted by political scientists Lev Nachman, Yen Weiting, and Hannah Kim showed that Taiwanese seemed to prefer Vice President Kamala Harris, with 56 percent of respondents showing a preference for her over former President Donald Trump. Although some deep Greens remain convinced that Trump would act to benefit Taiwan by taking a strong stance against China, the result seems to indicate that Taiwanese may have come to view him as a potentially destabilizing force.
In 2016, before the start of Trump’s first term, the U.S. president-elect took an unprecedented phone call from Taiwan’s then-President Tsai Ing-wen, raising hopes for stronger Taiwan-U.S. ties. The start of the China-U.S. trade war also buoyed expectations that a tougher U.S. stance on China would entail stronger support for Taiwan. Though Taiwan-U.S. bilateral ties did strengthen during the first Trump term, Trump also came to be viewed as potentially dangerous, as his comments have repeatedly suggested a transactional view of global politics.
