Taiwanese firms should expand global deployment to advance market diversification and avoid punitive tariffs from Washington after US President Donald Trump took office on Monday, Deloitte & Touche Taiwan (勤業眾信) said yesterday.
Trump’s first term saw US imports from China shrink US$70 billion in 2020, while imports from Taiwan gained US$50.5 billion, as local firms benefited from US-China trade frictions, Deloitte Taiwan financial advisory head Maggie Pan (潘家涓) told a news conference in Taipei.
Supply chain realignment would carry on with a focus on localization, meaning that more global firms would set up production bases near their customers, Pan said.
Photo: Clare Cheng, Taipei Times
Non-technology and technology firms have noted the need and built ecological clusters in Southeast Asia, Mexico and the US, she said.
The semiconductor supply chain in the US could grow larger and more mature, facilitated by Washington’s funding and pressure, Pan said, citing Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (台積電) massive investment in Arizona.
Japan poses another attractive investment destination, as the nation is seeking to groom its own semiconductor industry, and has provided funding and assistance, Pan said.
Deloitte Taiwan has identified Mexico, Canada, Thailand, Austria and Slovenia as the top five risk-prone investment destinations during Trump’s second term, while Vietnam looks increasingly unsafe given its growing trade surplus with the US.
That comes as some investments are aimed at illicit trans-shipment, or origin laundering, and are quite small in scale, as seen in Mexico, Pan said.
The latter practices have drawn Trump’s attention and prompted him to impose a 25 percent tariff on imports from neighboring Mexico and Canada.
China would remain the most favored investment destination for Taiwanese firms this year, followed by Vietnam and Thailand, a survey of business leaders released by PricewaterhouseCoopers Taiwan showed yesterday.
In the face of a new US administration, 50 percent of Taiwanese chief executives remain confident about the economy in the next 12 months, but 46 percent said that economic instability would the biggest challenge this year, the survey showed.
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