White House: No shift in US's Taiwan policy

Hours after President Joe Biden said the U.S. is committed to defending the Taiwan if it is attacked, the White House clarified his remarks by saying, "there's been no shift in policy."

The president made the remarks during a town hall broadcast by CNN on Thursday evening. On Friday, China said there is “no room” for compromise or concessions over the issue of Taiwan.

Biden's comments on Thursday were viewed as stretching the “strategic ambiguity" Washington has maintained over how it would respond to an assault on the self-governing island republic.

"The president was not announcing any change in our policy, nor has he made a decision to change our policy," said White House press secretary Jen Psaki.

Asked Friday whether the U.S. would defend Taiwan if the island were attacked by China, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told a reporter he would not discuss hypothetical situations, but also said, “nobody wants to see cross-Strait issues come to blows -– certainly not President Biden, and there’s no reason that it should.” Speaking in Brussels after a NATO defense ministers' meeting, Austin added that Washington remains committed to its longstanding “one China” policy.

During Friday's briefing, Psaki also listed a range of proposals the White House is considering to get revenue from corporations, given the opposition by Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema to raising corporate taxes to pay for Biden's spending plans.

Sinema has not been on board with her party’s plan to undo President Donald Trump’s tax breaks for big corporations or individuals earning more than $400,000 a year.

Psaki listed a U.S. minimum corporate tax and a global minimum tax as two ideas to raise revenues without raising corporate rates, as well as closing loopholes in the tax code that allow wealthy individuals to evade paying federal taxes.