Over 40% of Taiwanese doubt U.S. security support under Trump: Survey

Taipei, May 2 (CNA) More than 40 percent of Taiwanese people believe the United States' commitment to protect Taiwan will decrease during U.S. President Donald Trump's second term in office, compared to that of his predecessor, according to a survey by Academia Sinica, Taiwan's top research institution.

In the "American Portrait Survey" conducted in mid-March, 1,249 Taiwanese adults answered questions about their thoughts on U.S.-Taiwan-China relations.

Among the respondents, 21.1 percent and 23.3 percent said they believed the United States would offer "much less" and "somewhat less" commitment, respectively, for Taiwan's national security during Trump's second term, compared to the past few years under his predecessor Joe Biden.

While 5.7 percent of respondents said they believed the U.S. would offer "somewhat more" commitment and 4.6 percent said "much more," the largest group -- 38.5 percent -- expected the level of protection to "remain the same" as in the past few years before Trump returned to the White House on Jan. 20.

When asked whether they were concerned that the U.S. and China might reach agreements that would undermine Taiwan's national interests, 59 percent of respondents said they were.

The results of the survey -- an annual Taiwan-based look at public perceptions of the U.S. and China -- were released on Friday by Wu Wen-chin (吳文欽), a research fellow at Academia Sinica's Institute of Political Science, during a seminar in Taipei.

Wu commented that the survey results reflected how Trump's approach has heightened anxiety among Taiwanese over Taiwan-U.S. relations.

In the 2024 edition of the survey, when Biden was still president, Taiwanese people were asked whether the U.S. would send troops if China launched an invasion of Taiwan, and 15.3 percent said the U.S. "definitely would not," while 16.4 percent said it was "unlikely."

One year later, the 2025 survey showed a notable 10-percent increase in doubt over potential U.S. military support, with 18.7 percent saying the U.S. "definitely would not" intervene and 23.7 percent saying it was "unlikely" when asked the same question.

In addition, when respondents were asked in 2024 whether they agreed that the U.S. was a trustworthy country, 50 percent expressed disagreement. In 2025, that number rose by nearly 10 percentage points, with 59.6 percent saying they did not agree that the U.S. was trustworthy.

Funded by Academia Sinica's Institute of European and American Studies, the survey is a research program that began in 2021 and is expected to run for 10 years.

This year's edition was conducted by National Chengchi University's Election Study Center via telephone interviews from March 18 to 23, with 1,249 valid responses collected from individuals aged 20 or older who had household registration in Taiwan.

The survey had a confidence level of 95 percent and a margin of error of plus or minus 2.77 percentage points.