By Eric Gomez and Joseph O’Connor
The backlog of US weapons that have been sold but not delivered to Taiwan did not see any major shifts in the month of May. The backlog’s total value remains $21.5 billion, with deliveries of $4.4 billion—split roughly evenly between Abrams tanks and ground-launched Harpoon anti-ship missiles—in progress. See Figure 1 for a visualization of the backlog by weapons category and Table 1 for an itemized list.
Despite the lack of movement in the backlog’s dollar value, May was an important and illuminating month. Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense (MND) released multiple reports to the Legislative Yuan (LY) with new information about several— though not all— of the backlogged arms sales.
One bit of housekeeping before diving into the MND reports: we have adjusted Table 1, the itemized list of backlogged arms sales. Instead of the rightmost column showing the change of status since the previous month (which mostly resulted in “No Change” month after month), it now shows the status of the arms sale based on the most current available information that TSM analysts have on hand. One of TSM’s readers suggested this change and it is a very good one, so please don’t be afraid to send (constructive) criticism to us in the future.
MND’s Budget Unfreezing Reports
There are some rather nasty politics happening in Taiwan this year. Elections in January 2024 produced a divided government. The Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Lai Ching-te was elected president, but the DPP does not have a majority in the LY, holding 51 seats to the Kuomintang’s (KMT) 54 seats (2 legislators are independent, but caucus with the KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party’s 8 seats.
The LY’s composition has led to some high profile legislative (and physical) fights, and the DPP is hoping that a recall effort will remove enough KMT lawmakers later this year to restore their majority and create a united government.
The silver lining of this messy political situation— at least, for those of us monitoring the Taiwan arms sale backlog— is the release of multiple budget unfreezing reports by the MND. During the LY’s defense budget process earlier this year, KMT lawmakers froze approximately $3 billion of 2025’s proposed defense spending (roughly 14 percent of the total budget) across 279 individual spending items. To unfreeze the money, the MND must submit short reports to the LY explaining the status of the frozen programs and providing information on how it plans to use funds in the upcoming year.
The MND released a flurry of these budget unfreezing reports in May 2025, and they contain very valuable information on the status of multiple US arms sales to Taiwan.
Stinger Missiles
There are two Foreign Military Sales (FMS) cases for Stinger missiles in the arms backlog for a combined total of 500 missiles and cost of $440 million. The Stinger cases have been particularly frustrating. Per a 2024 report from the MND to the LY, Taiwan had to re-sign an important document to facilitate the arms sale due to the Army wanting to add missiles to an FMS case originally advanced by the Navy. The original Navy case for 250 missiles was due to be completed by 2022, but as of May 2025, neither case has been fully resolved.
The May 2025 budget unfreezing report on the Stinger FMS case indicates that Taiwan should receive all its currently outstanding Stinger missiles and grip stocks before the end of 2025. The report also mentions that the MND is budgeting to purchase 585 additional launchers and 2,121 additional missiles, the bulk of both going to the Army. This massive Stinger buy has not yet received Congressional notification, but it should occur soon. The report mentions that the MND submitted a Letter of Request to the United States in the first quarter of 2025.
Harpoon Coastal Defense System (HCDS)
The largest asymmetric FMS case in the backlog is a purchase of 400 ground-launched Harpoon missiles, 100 launch vehicles, and 25 radar vehicles, valued at $2.37 billion. Earlier reporting from Taiwan’s press and the March 2025 annual update to SIPRI’s dataset on arms transfers suggested that components for this arms sale had started arriving in Taiwan, though there was some uncertainty about just how much was delivered.
The budget unfreezing report for the HCDS provides more details. Per the report, the first radar truck and five launch vehicles rolled off the production line in the first quarter of 2025. There was a bit of a gap between production and shipment to Taiwan. This first batch of vehicles arrived in Taiwan in late June 2025.
MQ-9B Unmanned Aircraft
A sale of four MQ-9B surveillance drones and two ground stations received Congressional notification in November 2020. When freezing funds for the MQ-9B purchase, legislators said they were concerned that the MND had plans to store all four aircraft in a single hangar.
The budget unfreezing report states that MND has adjusted its storage plan and will distribute the MQ-9Bs across more storage facilities to reduce their vulnerability to attack. The report anticipates that construction of the MQ-9B’s support facilities will be completed by the end of 2025. All four aircraft are expected to arrive in Taiwan sometime in 2026.
Field Information Communication System (FICS)
The $280 million FICS case had preciously little publicly available information after it was notified to Congress in December 2020, besides a press report from March 2022 claiming that delivery would occur sometime in 2025. The budget unfreezing report indicates that the FICS successfully finished system component testing earlier this year. Delivery of the first batch of systems is expected before the end of 2025, but it is not clear when the final delivery will occur.
High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS)
Taiwan had two FMS cases for HIMARS—an initial buy of 11 launchers and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) notified to Congress in 2020 and a plus-up of 18 additional launchers, guided rocket pods, and ATACMS in December 2022. In November 2024, the first batch of 11 launchers and several ATACMS arrived in Taiwan. The HIMARS cases are also cited as the only arms sale to Taiwan that is ahead of its original delivery schedule.
The budget unfreezing report provides more details about the pace of munitions deliveries for HIMARS. The report says that Taiwan should receive the remaining 18 launchers by the end of 2026, but deliveries of ATACMS and rocket pods could extend into 2027 given the large volume of munitions that Taiwan is purchasing. Additionally, Taiwan’s military successfully test-fired a HIMARS from its territory for the first time in May 2025.
Conclusion
Except for the secretive FICS, none of the information in the budget unfreezing reports was all that shocking or unexpected. While there are some deviations from earlier reported delivery timelines, none of these are significant. However, the budget unfreezing reports are a noteworthy example of transparency from the MND. This crop of reports is the result of a contentious political environment in Taiwan, but having a regular, publicly available reporting mechanism to keep the LY— and researchers— informed about arms sales delivery timelines would be valuable.
We at TSM will be tracking down and translating as many of these budget unfreezing reports as possible in the coming weeks.