Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week.
The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US.
Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them.
Photo: CNA
Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US was the sixth-largest in the world, behind China, Mexico, Vietnam, Ireland and Germany, central bank data showed.
Asked about the possibility of Taiwan being included in the list, Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs Cynthia Kiang (江文若) told lawmakers that the government was taking steps to reduce the trade imbalance, including drawing up a list of potential goods that could be purchased from the US.
For example, state-run CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) last week signed a letter of intent to buy liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Alaska Gasline Development Corp and invest in its Alaska LNG project, Kiang said.
Taiwan is also considering increasing oil imports from the US in a bid to boost energy cooperation and enhance natural gas supply stability, she added.
However, Taiwan’s purchasing targets and the status of its negotiations with the US government cannot be made public for the time being, Kiang said.
Chuang and Kiang made the remarks at a meeting of the legislature’s Finance Committee yesterday, a day after the central bank in a report defended Taiwan’s trade and currency record, saying that the high current account surplus was a structural problem and that Washington understood that.
Taiwan’s trade surplus with the US surged 83 percent last year compared with 2023, with exports to the US hitting a record US$111.4 billion, up 46.1 percent year-on-year, driven by demand for high-tech products such as semiconductors, a sector dominated by Taiwan.
Asked if tariffs on vehicles would be reduced, given that Trump announced a 25 percent tariff on auto imports, Kiang said a specially created trade task force had “already drafted relevant plans,” while Chuang said that import tariffs on health supplements and other products would be reduced.
WEAKER ACTIVITY: The sharpest deterioration was seen in the electronics and optical components sector, with the production index falling 13.2 points to 44.5 Taiwan’s manufacturing sector last month contracted for a second consecutive month, with the purchasing managers’ index (PMI) slipping to 48, reflecting ongoing caution over trade uncertainties, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The decline reflects growing caution among companies amid uncertainty surrounding US tariffs, semiconductor duties and automotive import levies, and it is also likely linked to fading front-loading activity, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said. “Some clients have started shifting orders to Southeast Asian countries where tariff regimes are already clear,” Lien told a news conference. Firms across the supply chain are also lowering stock levels to mitigate
IN THE AIR: While most companies said they were committed to North American operations, some added that production and costs would depend on the outcome of a US trade probe Leading local contract electronics makers Wistron Corp (緯創), Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), Inventec Corp (英業達) and Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶) are to maintain their North American expansion plans, despite Washington’s 20 percent tariff on Taiwanese goods. Wistron said it has long maintained a presence in the US, while distributing production across Taiwan, North America, Southeast Asia and Europe. The company is in talks with customers to align capacity with their site preferences, a company official told the Taipei Times by telephone on Friday. The company is still in talks with clients over who would bear the tariff costs, with the outcome pending further
Six Taiwanese companies, including contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), made the 2025 Fortune Global 500 list of the world’s largest firms by revenue. In a report published by New York-based Fortune magazine on Tuesday, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), ranked highest among Taiwanese firms, placing 28th with revenue of US$213.69 billion. Up 60 spots from last year, TSMC rose to No. 126 with US$90.16 billion in revenue, followed by Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) at 348th, Pegatron Corp (和碩) at 461st, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) at 494th and Wistron Corp (緯創) at
NEGOTIATIONS: Semiconductors play an outsized role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development and are a major driver of the Taiwan-US trade imbalance With US President Donald Trump threatening to impose tariffs on semiconductors, Taiwan is expected to face a significant challenge, as information and communications technology (ICT) products account for more than 70 percent of its exports to the US, Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said on Friday. Compared with other countries, semiconductors play a disproportionately large role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development, Lien said. As the sixth-largest contributor to the US trade deficit, Taiwan recorded a US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US last year — up from US$47.8 billion in 2023 — driven by strong
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