The U.S. Department of Defense Office of the Inspector General (DoD OIG) revealed that the Pentagon sent American allies in Taiwan a shipment of “moldy” tactical vests and expired ammunition, the South China Morning Post reported on Tuesday, among other “unserviceable” items.
The revelation appeared in a report made public by the watchdog office on September 12 featuring unsightly images of military equipment “soaking wet and covered in mold,” forcing the Taiwanese government to spend significant time and energy parsing through the massive useless military shipment and costing American officials hundreds of thousands of dollars to ameliorate.
The embarrassing incident follows months of escalating belligerent activity against Taiwan from neighboring China, which falsely claims the sovereign state as a “province” under Beijing. Among those actions are attacks on Taiwanese civilian fishing vessels, violations of Taiwanese airspace by Chinese warplanes, and cyberattack campaigns on critical Taiwanese technology targets.
The faulty shipments to Taiwan reportedly occurred between November 2023 – when President Joe Biden warmly welcomed Chinese genocidal dictator Xi Jinping to San Francisco for a private meeting – and March 2024. The OIG report documented “unserviceable and poorly packaged equipment and munitions to Taiwan” including old ammunition and “water damaged pallets” of gear.
Some pallets reaching Taipei, the report noted, “contained vests and plates that were ‘soaking wet and full of mold.'”
“For example, in December 2023, Taiwanese authorities spent weeks unpacking, drying, and inventorying the wet and moldy PD equipment,” the report detailed. “In addition, TACOM personnel told us that they spent $618,894 in labor and materials to clean and dry wet and moldy body armor at the APOE, and $113,492 to replace damaged body armor delivered to Taiwan.”
In total, the OIG found that American taxpayers lost at least $730,000 to “additional costs” related to addressing the disaster.
“An official from TACOM—the organization that the Army relies on to develop, provide, or sustain anything a Soldier wears, drives, or shoots—stated that mold spores present a health and safety concern,” the OIG report continued, “especially to anyone with pre-existing respiratory issues, and that they recommended that no one wear the moldy equipment.”
TACOM is an acronym for the American Army Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command.
The OIG included photos of the pallets featuring visible green and white mold buildup.
The Morning Post noted that, elsewhere in its report, the Pentagon OIG noted “some of the 2.7 million rounds of poorly packaged ammunition were manufactured in 1983 and had expired,” rendering them unusable. Several other shipments were of unclear usefulness but poorly organized, “in a mix of original, substitute, and loose packaging,” adding to the Taiwanese military’s workload in figuring out what, exactly, the Biden administration sent it.
“The delivery of these items hampers the [Pentagon’s] ability to achieve established security cooperation goals and may lead to a loss of partner confidence in the United States,” the report warned.
The Morning Post reported that the Taiwanese Defense Ministry responded to the report on Monday, stating vaguely that the embarrassment “is being jointly reviewed and addressed by both Taiwan and the U.S.”
Inspector General Robert P. Storch, who oversaw the organization of the report, warned in a statement on Thursday that incidents such as these could present a major national security risk for the United States as allied nations may stop trusting the Pentagon to offer quality partnerships.
“This report demonstrates the significant negative consequences of failing to follow established DoD policies for delivery of assistance to key security cooperation partners,” Storch asserted. “Had policies been followed, the DoD [Department of Defense] would have been able to provide Taiwan with military equipment in acceptable condition as mandated in the Presidential Drawdown Authority.”
“Instead, the equipment arrived in Taiwan damaged and moldy. Such performance risks eroding Taiwan’s confidence in the United States as a reliable source of assistance,” he concluded.
Pentagon spokesman responded to the report this weekend by insisting that Taiwan – which the United States does not formally recognize as a country – “is a key security cooperation partner” and the Biden administration “is committed to ensuring that equipment delivered to this partner is sufficient for operational use.”
“We appreciate the perspective this report brings to a complex and unique issue for a critical security cooperation partner and anticipate the positive impact it will have on the department moving forward,” Nguyen added.
The failure occurred at a pivotal time in Taiwanese defense. As National Security Agency Director and U.S. Cyber Command Director Gen. Timothy Haugh explained in May, “increasingly, we see China’s actions to be threatening in those areas, the activities around Taiwan over the last week, also threats to the Philippines, as well as Vietnam and Japan.” Those activities include a growing number of People’s Liberation Army (PLA) drills and attacks on civilian fishing vessels in the South China Sea.
In July, Chinese Coast Guard forces seized a civilian fishing ship near Taiwan’s Kinmen Islands, claiming that it was fishing illegally in Chinese waters. Later that month, the Taiwanese Defense Ministry revealed it documented 66 Chinese warplanes and seven Chinese naval vessels circling the island in a 24-hour period.
“The military has a detailed grasp of the activities in the seas and waters around the Taiwan Strait, including of the Chinese Communists’ aircraft and ships,” Taiwan warned at the time.
Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te proposed a record-high defense budget for the country in August, urging the legislature to approve $19.76 billion in expenditures for 2025 to protect from a potential Chinese attack. The proposal represented a 6.7-percent increase in spending from 2024.
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