Washington is moving toward sitting on an important Taiwan arms package instead of announcing it in the next few weeks, according to several people with knowledge of the discussions, bringing to a close a series of sensitive diplomatic set pieces that could break the stalemate in U.S.-China relations. The United States is mulling on the possibility of delaying the announcement of large arms sales to Taiwan until after the Apec summit in Shenzhen next week, while Chinese President Xi Jinping is set to arrive in Washington next week for a state visit.

The White House could extend the delay a long, long way, sources involved in the talks say. It is likely that President Donald Trump will continue the postponement until the end of the year, reference to a scheduled bilateral meeting at the Apec summit and Xi's planned visit to Florida for the G20 summit in December.

One insider in the process told The Diplomat that Trump was considering all sorts of other options to delay the signing on the sales, but in the end, it would be a compromise between him, some of his “China hawk” colleagues, and Taiwan's lobbyists in Washington. Another extreme option was also thrown out: One source said the President had privately considered taking the case all the way to the end of his term in 2028 or January 2029.

The item up for discussion is not a small thing. File watchers estimated its worth to be about $14 billion, while earlier this year it was reported that it was focused on Patriot PAC-3 interceptors and the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System, topped with at least $6 billion in "asymmetric" capabilities that would make an amphibious assault on the island too costly. It would be, by some calculations, the largest arms deal ever offered to Taipei. It rests on a fat pipeline: defence trackers have counted the number of cases of foreign military sales that have been notified to Congress but not yet delivered to Taiwan, and the value of those orders is $29.72 billion, including asymmetric systems, conventional platforms and munitions yet to be produced.

This isn't the first time the file has been delayed. It goes back to the Trump-Xi meeting in Beijing earlier this year, when the American president came back from talks in Beijing looking "noncommittal," telling reporters on Air Force One that the last thing Washington needed was a war nine and a half thousand miles from home, and that he had to consult Taipei before taking any action. That was a confusing situation for lawmakers of both parties. Before the trip, a bipartisan group of eight senators sent a letter to the White House that said the package was essential to America's "interests" and that Trump must “make it abundantly clear” to Xi that Taiwan support is “not up for negotiation.” In July, Beijing also is said to have delayed a planned visit to the country by a high-ranking Pentagon policy official, this time as a lever to the $14 billion decision.

Taipei, in turn, has steadily defused the situation. Despite a senior US Navy official telling a Senate panel that some foreign military sales were being suspended to maintain the stockpiles for American operations against Iran, Taiwan's government said it had not been officially notified that any of its purchase was being put on hold. The island's legislature had already approved a $25 billion special defence budget earlier this year to finance just this sort of acquisition, and a domestic political battle that dragged on for many months because of opposition concerns about the high cost of the defence budget.

The impact of the commercial blow is most keenly felt away from Washington's marble corridors on defence industry balance sheets. Anduril Industries, the drone and autonomous-systems manufacturer that has been constructing its Asian agenda using Taiwan opportunities is stating the obvious that the series of delays is having a negative impact on business. Its founder is outspoken about what's at stake, having directly confronted the president about the ransom. Earlier this month, its assets were frozen and executives' travel to China banned, as part of the Chinese government's response to Washington's previous round of sanctions, which targeted 20 American defence companies, including St Louis-based Boeing, L3Harris and Northrop Grumman.

Remove the theatre and you get what is all too often a familiar pattern in great power deal making: arms sales as a lever to hold, delay or use at will depending on the context of the rest of the relationship. Trump has previously referred to the package as a good negotiating card, which has raised eyebrows of allies who want Taiwan policy to be kept "stable" and not subject to the negotiation process. But production is as severe a limitation as is diplomacy. American manufacturers are still processing orders from replenishment needs in Ukraine and NATO stockpiles and more orders for munitions required for operations in the Middle East, with delivery commitments of two to four years for some systems already pledged to Taipei, even if the turmoil on any summit table is muted.

A quiet rest for Beijing comes before Xi's Washington visit and the subsequent Apec and G20 summits and is a low-cost diplomatic success, as it avoids escalation with Washington without forcing the White House to take any formal steps to change its Taiwan stance. The danger for Taipei is not just that any particular package will be held hostage to a summit calendar, but also any future sale of arms will be treated in Beijing as a negotiation rather than a transaction. Companies such as Anduril are driving Taiwan's own burgeoning defence sector to become more self-reliant in order to offset precisely such American hesitation, and markets will be monitoring closely to see whether the halt becomes the new normal or this year's summit season buzz.