The EU wants to engage swiftly with Washington over US President Donald Trump’s planned tariffs, EU Commissioner for Trade and Economic Security Maros Sefcovic said yesterday, while his boss, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, said that the bloc would protect its interests in negotiations.
Sefcovic, speaking before a meeting of EU ministers to debate trade and EU competitiveness, said he wanted “early engagement” and was awaiting confirmation of the appointment of Trump’s pick for commerce secretary, financier Howard Lutnick.
“We are ready to engage immediately and we hope that through this early engagement, we can avoid the measures which would bring a lot of disturbance to the most important trade and investment relationship on this planet,” he told reporters.
Photo: AFP
Von der Leyen said the EU executive’s first priority was to work on the many areas where EU and US interests converge, such as critical supply chains and emerging technologies.
In a speech in Brussels, she said the EU was ready for tough negotiations to work out grievances and set the foundations for a stronger partnership.
“We will be open and pragmatic in how to achieve that, but we will make it equally clear that we will always protect our own interests — however and whenever that is needed,” Von der Leyen said.
EU officials said contacts with the Trump administration have been limited so far, adding that his picks for top jobs are not able to speak to foreign counterparts until their positions have been confirmed. Von der Leyen and Trump have not been in contact since Trump’s inauguration.
The EU meeting in Warsaw started just a few hours after additional US tariffs of 10 percent on Chinese goods took effect, prompting China to hit back. Canada and Mexico were also in line for 25 percent US tariffs yesterday, but each secured a 30-day pause.
Trump has said the EU is next in line. He has repeatedly complained about the US trade deficit with the 27-country bloc.
Sefcovic said that deficit, including services trade, was about 50 billion euros (US$51.6 billion), or about 3 percent of overall annual EU-US trade of 1.5 trillion euros, while 4 million jobs on both sides of the Atlantic were reliant on this open trading relationship.
“We believe through constructive engagement and discussion we can resolve this problem,” he said.
Sefcovic did not go into how the bloc might negotiate, but some ministers offered advice on the EU approach.
Luxembourg Minister of Foreign Affairs Xavier Bettel, who was prime minister during Trump’s first term, said the EU needed to be united and strong and not begin negotiations with concessions.
“This is not the Marrakech souk,” he said. “We don’t offer. We listen, we exchange, we say things. We don’t offer.”
Irish Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment Peter Burke also said it was not worthwhile at this point to make offers.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to remain Apple Inc’s primary chip manufacturing partner despite reports that Apple could shift some orders to Intel Corp, industry experts said yesterday. The comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple and Intel had reached a preliminary agreement following more than a year of negotiations for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices. Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) economist Arisa Liu (劉佩真) said TSMC’s advanced packaging technologies, including integrated fan-out and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, remain critical to the performance of Apple’s A-series and M-series chips. She said Intel and Samsung
POWER BUILDUP: Powered by Nvidia’s B200 Blackwell chips, the data center would support MediaTek’s computing power demand and business growth, the company said Smartphone chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday launched a new artificial intelligence (AI) data center with a maximum capacity of 45 megawatts to meet its rising demand for computing power required to develop new advanced chips for AI applications. The company has completed the first-phase computing power buildup at the data center in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼), providing 15 megawatts of capacity to support its research and development (R&D) capabilities, despite an industrywide shortage of key components, MediaTek said. Supply constraints have plagued a wide range of key components, including memory chips, solid-state drives, power supply units and central
IMAGE SENSORS: The Japanese company would be the controlling shareholder of the venture, with development and production lines to be set up in Kumamoto Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it has signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Sony Semiconductor Solutions Corp to create a joint venture to develop and produce next-generation images sensors. The partnership seeks to explore and address emerging opportunities in physical artificial intelligence (AI) applications, such as automotive and robotics, paving the way for innovations and expanded technological advancements, TSMC said in a statement. Sony would be the majority and controlling shareholder of the joint venture, the statement said, adding that the company would set up development and production lines in its newly constructed fab in Kumamoto Prefecture’s
RSS