The US has defense agreements with at the very least Taiwan and the Philippines and more distantly Japan. Allowing China to claim the South China Sea would seriously hamper the US' ability to meet the obligations in those treaties. Not to mention that ensuring products produced in that area are able to be shipped through the South China Sea is absolutely essential as is evidenced by the effects of the current chip shortage. If access to TSMC products was suddenly cut off by China it would cause massive issues across the world and especially so in the US.
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