Taiwan's President Lai postpones Americas visit after typhoon
By Sofia Menchu in Guatemala City and Daniela Desantis in Asuncion
Taiwan's President Lai Ching-te will delay an expected trip to remaining allies in the Americas that would have taken place next month, embassy officials told Reuters on Tuesday, due to damages from a typhoon and as the island faces more torrential rains.
Lai was expected to travel to the Americas next month, as his government seeks to shore up support in a region where many countries have cut diplomatic ties in favor of relations with China, which claims Taiwan as its territory.
However, embassy officials in Guatemala and Paraguay said the visit had been postponed until further notice.
"It had to be postponed because of the typhoon that caused many natural disasters. There is no new date to reschedule the visit," an embassy official in Guatemala City told Reuters.
A spokesperson at Taiwan's embassy in Paraguay's capital Asuncion, where Lai had also been expected to visit, told Reuters the Taiwanese leader did not currently plan to travel abroad.
Earlier on Tuesday, Paraguayan ruling party congressman Hugo Meza said that the country was "wasting time" maintaining diplomatic relations with the Taiwanese. Paraguay is the only country in South America that still recognizes Taiwan.
Lai had also been expected to make stops in Belize and the United States.
Sources told Reuters earlier this week Lai would delay the diplomatically sensitive trip his team had floated to the Trump administration for August.
The United States has traditionally facilitated transits by Taiwanese leaders, but Lai's trip was bound to infuriate Beijing at a time when U.S. President Donald Trump is trying to negotiate a deal on trade with China.
Beijing regularly denounces any shows of support for Taipei from Washington.
One of the sources who spoke to Reuters earlier this week said Lai is set to delay the trip until at least later this year for a handful of reasons, including the need to organize his government's response to extreme weather in Taiwan.
A person with direct knowledge of the matter said the trip was not being canceled, and eventual U.S. stopovers were likely to include Texas and another city in the U.S. mainland. Lai had considered stopping in New York and Dallas on the way to and from Latin America.
Asked about a delay, U.S. State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce told a regular news briefing no travel plans had been announced so the issue was "hypothetical."
"At this point, there have been no ... travel plans for the president (Lai). There has been, as a result, nothing canceled," she said, while reiterating that U.S. transits by high-level Taiwanese officials "were fully consistent with our longstanding policy and practice."
"This has not changed," she said.
Taiwan is still recovering from Typhoon Danas, which struck its densely populated west coast this month with record winds and brought widespread damage to its electricity grid and some houses.
More recent flooding has submerged streets and buildings in several towns across southern Taiwan this week, and its weather administration has warned that more intense rain could trigger more landslides.
© (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2025.
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