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One of the ironies of the coronavirus pandemic is that the country having the most success fighting it is not even a member of the World Health Organization.

That nation is Taiwan, which could have easily been one of the hardest-hit places because of its proximity to China. More than a million Taiwanese live and work in China, and they frequently go back and forth across the Taiwan Strait. But despite this, Taiwan only has 235 cases of COVID-19 as of March 25 – the vast majority imported.

If Taiwan can continue to hold the line, it will further bolster its reputation as a valuable U.S. ally – one that deserves a stronger relationship with Washington, especially in the realm of trade and economics.

The WHO doesn’t deserve any credit for helping Taiwan combat COVID-19 because the country – despite having a world-class medical and public health system – has long been excluded from the U.N. organization. That’s because Beijing believes the self-ruled, democratic island is part of China and tries to isolate it from the rest of the world.

The WHO should be holding up Taiwan as an amazing success story. The island moved fast to seal off the threat of COVID-19 coming from China. Taiwan’s health authorities put together a winning combination of early intervention, big data and AI, and daily press briefings – keeping the situation under control and the public informed every step of the way.

Photo by Chien-Tong Wang

Taiwan’s world-famous single payer healthcare system ensures that those who do contract the coronavirus need not worry about receiving treatment. The government has exceeded international standards by testing those suspected of infection three times. Meanwhile, the U.S. CDC has come under fire recently for inadequate distribution of testing kits. In addition, the fact that tens of millions of Americans are without medical insurance creates loopholes in the system that could speed the spread of the coronavirus there.

Taiwan’s leaders and those in charge of the response effort are experts. Vice President Chen Chien-jen is a Johns Hopkins-trained epidemiologist who led Taiwan’s battle against SARS in 2003. Throughout the current outbreak, Chen has provided consistent public service announcements and has played something of a consultative role to Taiwan’s health minister.

Politically, both the U.S. and Taiwan are deeply divided societies, and a pandemic has the potential to cause even deeper fissures if not handled correctly. We are seeing this play out in the U.S.

However, in Taiwan, the coronavirus outbreak has had a unifying effect. Politicians have largely avoided public bickering in favor of cooperating with government officials to curb the virus’ spread.

Photo by Kuo-Tai Liu

Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan’s president, has been a strong helmswoman during the outbreak, encouraging calm and deferring to the expertise of health officials and professionals. She has had an active presence on social media, keeping the world abreast of the many ways government, industry, and the public are working together to fight the coronavirus in Taiwan.

This is to say that once the coronavirus situation has been brought under control in the U.S., it should really start getting more serious about its trade relationship with Taiwan. A priority should be to finally get Taiwan on the short list for a free trade agreement.

Taiwan is American’s 11th largest trading partner, with $70.6 billion in two-way trade in 2018. When U.S. farmers were feeling the pain of Chinese tariffs on agricultural exports last year, Taiwan stepped in, signing a deal to buy $3.7 billion worth of U.S. corn, soybeans, and beef. Having an FTA in place would bolster the U.S.-Taiwan trade relationship.

Another good next step would be to resume regular high-level visits of U.S. officials to Taiwan. Although the Taiwan Travel Act was passed in 2018 with strong bipartisan support, a subsequent visit by a cabinet-level official has yet to occur.

Finally, the U.S. needs to push harder for Taiwan’s participation in the World Health Organization, or for it to regain its observer status in the annual World Health Assembly.

To be sure, Taiwan does have some great cheerleaders from both major parties in Congress, showing that support for Taiwan is a bipartisan issue. The Senate’s recent unanimous passing of the TAIPEI Act, which calls for most of the above recommendations, is certainly encouraging.

However, a bill is only as strong as a government’s willingness to act on it. What we need to see moving forward are concrete actions by the Trump administration to fully cement the U.S. relationship with its unofficial Pacific ally.

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William Foreman is a former foreign correspondent for The Associated Press who covered Greater China for 10 years and now serves as the president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Taipei.