Taiwan's cabinet has approved a record extra budget with a huge chunk going to drones, good news for local drone makers but tangled in a fight over whether the spending has a legal basis.

• The cabinet passed a supplementary budget of over NT$600 billion, the largest ever, with about a quarter of it — NT$145.6 billion — set aside to buy drones.
• Most of the rest, over NT$420 billion, goes to everyday cost-of-living measures.
• The KMT caucus says the cabinet must immediately countersign the drone and defense-industry law already passed by parliament, or the drone money has no legal footing.
• The push is to buy Taiwanese-made drones first, building a homegrown supply chain from research to export.
• The goal is to turn drones into Taiwan's second "sacred mountain" industry, after chips, by leaning on the island's IT manufacturing strength.

Outlook: Parliament will scrutinize the budget line by line, and the money likely stays stuck until the cabinet signs off on the drone law.