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.
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