US reportedly accepts Taiwan's price requests for MH-60R sub-hunting helicopters and C-130Js

The United States has accepted Taiwan's letters of request for price and availability data on MH-60R Seahawk anti-submarine helicopters and C-130J Super Hercules transport aircraft, two purchases Washington had previously turned down or shelved, the Liberty Times reported on Thursday, 8 October, citing information from inside Taiwan's military. The newspaper's defence reporter Lo Tien-pin wrote that US officials had in the past declined or set aside both requests on the grounds that they did not fit the asymmetric warfare concept, and that the American position had recently shifted.

Military sources quoted by the paper described the step as a green light for the first stage of both programmes and said its main significance lay in a looser US definition of asymmetric warfare. In their view, Washington had long held that Taiwan needed only cheap, numerous and mobile weapons and had opposed further sales of large platforms, but the growing threat of a Chinese blockade and of People's Liberation Army submarines appears to have led it to reassess the urgency of anti-submarine warfare. Hong Kong news site on.cc carried the Liberty Times account on 9 October. None of the reports included comment from Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense or the US government.

Still a long way from a sale

The same sources cautioned that accepting a letter of request only reopens the conversation. Because both packages are very expensive, they said, the purchases would be settled only after the US State Department announces the proposed sales and Washington formally issues a letter of offer and acceptance.

Army Recognition, a defence publication, reported on 9 October, citing the Liberty Times, that Taiwan is seeking up to 20 MH-60Rs, up from a previous requirement of 12, to replace the navy's 17 remaining S-70C(M) helicopters bought between 1990 and 2001, and that the Ministry of National Defense had approved a revised version of the programme, known as Shenying III, by 1 October. It said no contract value, delivery schedule or letter of offer had been disclosed.

According to the Liberty Times sources, the MH-60R's dipping sonar and radar would greatly widen the navy's submarine search radius, and its missiles would let it act as a long-range lookout for the fleet. The C-130J would replace C-130H transports that have served for more than 30 years, helping the air force shift aircraft from western to eastern bases in wartime, rush missile components east if runways are damaged, and resupply outlying islands including Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and Itu Aba. Both types use the Link 16 data link common to US and Indo-Pacific forces, the sources said.

Cancelled in 2022, refused in 2025

The helicopter purchase has a troubled history. In May 2022, then defence minister Chiu Kuo-cheng told lawmakers that the price of the 12 MH-60Rs Taiwan had planned to buy was beyond its means, after local media reported that Washington had rejected the sale as out of line with the island's needs, Al Jazeera reported at the time.

In April 2025, Ukrainian outlet Militarnyi, citing Taiwanese media, reported that US officials had told a visiting Taiwanese deputy defence minister that MH-60Rs and E-2D early warning aircraft did not fit the asymmetric concept and would not be supported. Army Recognition reported that the navy reconsidered the purchase in September 2025 before expanding the proposal to 20 helicopters this year. It put the cancelled 2022 budget at NT$34.019 billion for 12 helicopters and noted that South Korea approved 20 more MH-60Rs for US$2.41 billion in September.

If confirmed, acceptance of the requests would reverse the 2025 refusal on a large crewed platform, but the programme's record suggests cost, not US approval alone, could again decide whether Taiwan's navy gets the helicopters.