Chairman Gallagher's Support for Harpoon Deterrence for Taiwan

Click HERE for full transcript.

-

A year ago, Xi Jinping stood in front of the 20th Party Congress in Beijing and instructed the Chinese military to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027.

To deter him and preserve peace, we must move heaven and earth to arm Taiwan. 

Vital to this effort will be anti-ship missiles, including Harpoon missiles to prevent Xi’s People’s Liberation Army from crossing the Taiwan Strait.

The United States has already agreed to send harpoons to Taiwan.

Sadly, due to red tape and contracting delays, deliveries of these weapons won’t be completed for years.

For example, after Taiwan purchased 400 ground-launched Harpoons in October of 2020, it took the Navy two and half years just to sign the contract to produce the weapons.

More striking – reports suggest these harpoons won’t be delivered until 2029, two years after the PLA will presumably be ready to invade Taiwan.

The time to deliver these missiles to Taiwan was yesterday.

At this moment of global crisis, America’s enemies feast on appeasement and passivity to unleash unmitigated aggression.

That is why we can ill afford to embolden America’s greatest adversary in Beijing by failing to show strength. 

Peace is not an easy task – it requires the daily efforts of men and women in uniform to deter our adversaries from choosing the violent path.

But while deterrence may be hard – war is hell.   

And so let us begin today.

With the help of workers on assembly lines from Arizona to Alabama, we can build America’s arsenal of deterrence to arm our allies and replenish our depleted weapons stockpiles. 

For a peaceful Indo-Pacific and a peaceful world, we must act now.