McCaul: We Can’t Make Weapons Fast Enough ‘to Protect the United States or our Allies’ and Don’t Have Deterrence in Taiwan

On Monday’s broadcast of the Fox Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) said that “we cannot make our weapons fast enough to protect the United States or our allies,” Taiwan isn’t prepared for an invasion by China, and the U.S. doesn’t have adequate deterrence on the island.

McCaul said, “Taiwan’s not prepared for this. I signed off on weapons three years ago, Maria, that have yet to go into [the] country. We have no deterrence, we have no joint military exercises with Taiwan. They are — unlike Ukraine, they’re incapable of fighting their own war if invaded.”

He added, “When we sell an ally or somebody like Taiwan our foreign military sales…why does it take three years? Why don’t we have any weapons systems in [the] country right now to provide a deterrent to Chairman Xi from invading? Because, the fact is, we don’t. And I don’t think [Secretary of State Tony Blinken] can answer that question other than to say our defense industrial base system is broken and we can’t make these weapons fast enough.”

McCaul concluded, “[T]he fact is, we can’t make these weapons fast enough, the new ones. And I think that’s part of the problem, that, it’s a little secret in Washington, Maria, a little well-kept secret that we cannot make our weapons fast enough to protect the United States or our allies, and that’s just the truth.”

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