The White House wanted to cut aid to El Salvador after it severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan in favor of China. But that could have jeopardized efforts to curb illegal immigration.
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration considered severely penalizing El Salvador this month for severing diplomatic ties with Taiwan in a move that officials said was intended to signal a significant widening of the administration’s pushback against China.
The effort ultimately fizzled over concerns that the penalties — eliminating some foreign aid and imposing visa restrictions on certain individuals — would have made El Salvador unwilling to help stop the flow of illegal immigrants to the United States.
The threat set off a furious internal debate between the White House and State Department, and pit American diplomats focused on China against those working on issues in the Western Hemisphere. It also displayed the administration’s determination to challenge China beyond a growing trade war, even before it settles on a clear strategy.
At the United Nations on Tuesday, President Trump announced the State Department would undertake a thorough review of foreign aid, giving it only “to those who respect us and, frankly, are our friends.”
He also cited “the encroachment of expansionist foreign powers” in the Western Hemisphere.
Beijing has been quietly carrying out a wide-ranging effort to vastly expand its trade and influence in Latin America, and in 2015, China passed the United States to become South America’s largest trading partner. In a speech on the eve of a trip through Latin America and the Caribbean in February, Rex W. Tillerson, the secretary of state at the time, warned about the dangers of the region’s growing ties with China.
The proposed penalties were raised by John R. Bolton, the national security adviser, three American officials said, after El Salvador established sovereign relations with China in August. It was the third Latin American country over the last year to do so; the Dominican Republic cut ties to Taiwan in May and Panama in June 2017.
China insists Taiwan is part of its territory. Currently, 17 nations have resisted recognizing Beijing’s diplomatic sovereignty, and China has been pushing harder against the last holdouts since Tsai Ing-wen, a critic of Beijing, became president of Taiwan in 2016.
The White House wanted to push back.
Mr. Bolton called President Salvador Sánchez Cerén of El Salvador and warned him not to sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a White House spokesman said.
In August, Mr. Sánchez did it anyway.
Mr. Bolton is a staunch defender of Taiwan. The pressure by the White House on other nations to maintain recognition of Taiwan instead of opening diplomatic relations with Beijing is awkward, given that the United States itself severed ties with the island in 1979 and recognized the People’s Republic of China.
