Washington is slow-walking a pending arms package for Taiwan on the eve of a Trump-Xi summit, which is unwelcome news for Taipei.

• Secretary of State Marco Rubio said pending weapons sales to Taiwan are still being evaluated, with no timeline given.
• The holdup is about US stockpiles and factory capacity, not about Taiwan specifically — every foreign sale gets weighed against what American forces might need.
• The Pentagon has to balance commitments to the Indo-Pacific, NATO, and the Iran situation all at once.
• Rubio pointed to the record $11 billion package approved last December as proof the administration is still backing Taipei.
• The timing is awkward: Trump and Xi meet at the White House on the 24th, Xi's first state visit to the US in 11 years.

Outlook: A decision on the roughly $14 billion next batch that Trump promised after his Beijing trip is unlikely to come before the summit is over.