It’s the third time this year American vessels entered the strait in a move certain to stoke tensions with China.
There was no immediate reaction from China. Beijing protested after the US Navy sailed two warships through the Taiwan Strait on October 22, characterising the move as an affront to its sovereignty.
US-China flashpoints
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The latest move comes ahead of an expected meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Argentina on the sidelines of a G20 summit.
The US Navy conducted a similar mission in the strait’s international waters in July, the first in about a year.
Washington has no formal ties with Taiwan, which China claims as a “breakaway province”, but is bound by law to help the island defend itself and is its main source of arms.
The Pentagon says Washington has sold Taiwan weapons valued at more than $15bn since 2010.
China has been ramping up pressure to assert its sovereignty over the island.
Over the weekend, Taiwan’s ruling pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party suffered heavy losses in mayoral and county elections to the China-friendly Kuomintang, which has been welcomed by Beijing.
Taiwan is only one of a growing number of flashpoints in the US-China relationship, which also include a trade war, US sanctions, and China’s increasingly muscular military posture in the South China Sea.