US Senator Tammy Duckworth was in the news recently because she visited Taiwan for three days this week in a show of support from the United States.
Senator Duckworth was born in 1968 in Bangkok, Thailand. She lived in various Southeast Asian countries as a child, learning to speak Thai and Indonesian. Duckworth joined the US Army Reserves in 1992, eventually serving in Iraq where she was wounded in 2004.
She became head of Illinois states’ veteran affairs department in 2006, before being elected to the US House of Representatives in 2012. In 2016 she was elected a US Senator.
A member of the Senate Taiwan Caucus, Senator Duckworth has been a consistent supporter of Taiwan. Last year she led a delegation of US lawmakers to Taiwan in the midst of the country’s first major COVID outbreak, promising the United States wouldn’t let the country fight alone. The same year she introduced the Taiwan Partnership Act to establish a partnership between the US National Guard and Taiwanese defense forces. This May she introduced the Strengthen Taiwan’s Security Act.
Senator Duckworth was in the news this week as she visited Taiwan for three days. During her trip, she met with President Tsai Ing-wen and other top officials. According to the United States’ representative office, her trip centered on discussing regional security, trade and investment, and global supply chains.