Taiwan Expands DC Lobby Network With Trump Firm
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- Taiwan hired Checkmate Government Relations — founded by Ches McDowell, a close associate of Donald Trump Jr. — under a six-month, roughly $300,000 contract signed shortly before Trump's Beijing trip and amid a delayed U.S. arms package and Washington's dissatisfaction with Taipei's defense spending.
- Taipei is hedging across parties: it retained Ballard Partners in 2025 (led by Trump fundraiser Brian Ballard) while keeping Democratic-aligned Gephardt Government Affairs on retainer since 2013, along with former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle.
- The Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO) runs an influence apparatus that funds the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Brookings Institution, and the Hudson Institute, and pursues timely arms deliveries and expanded defense cooperation.
- The Taiwan Lobby has helped drive the Taiwan Travel Act, the TAIPEI Act, the Taiwan Enhanced Resilience Act (part of the FY2023 NDAA), and the defeated 2022 Taiwan Policy Act and Taiwan Invasion Prevention Act, which would have amounted to de facto authorization of military force.
- Ben Freeman of the Quincy Institute has documented Taiwan's operation as one of Washington's most successful foreign influence campaigns — effective precisely because it has become normalized, not covert.
- The article traces today's lobbying back to the Cold War–era "China Lobby" that backed Chiang Kai-shek; after Nixon's 1972 opening and Carter's 1979 normalization, the movement rebranded around democratic Taiwan, with the Taiwan Relations Act preserving arms commitments.
- Compared with lobbying by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and pro-Israel groups, Taiwan's expenditures are modest — but its support is so deeply embedded in Washington's foreign-policy establishment that it requires less active lobbying, the article notes.
Why it matters: Taiwan's roughly $300,000 Checkmate contract — signed days before Trump's Beijing trip and amid a delayed arms package — is a relationship-driven hedge against a White House that treats security commitments as negotiating leverage. The broader insight: Taiwan's Washington influence is the rare foreign campaign that succeeds precisely because it has become invisible rather than controversial.
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