US President Donald Trump on Wednesday suggested that he would not go below 15 percent as he sets so-called “reciprocal tariff” rates ahead of a deadline on Friday next week, an indication that the floor for the increased levies was rising.
“We’ll have a straight, simple tariff of anywhere between 15 percent and 50 percent,” Trump said at an artificial intelligence (AI) summit in Washington. “A couple of — we have 50 because we haven’t been getting along with those countries too well.”
Trump’s comment declaring that the tariffs would begin at 15 percent represented the latest twist in his effort to impose duties on nearly every US trading partner, and the latest indication that he was looking to more aggressively impose the levies on exports from countries outside the small group that so far has been able to broker trade frameworks with Washington.
Photo: AFP
Trump earlier this month said that more than 150 countries would receive a letter including a tariff rate of “probably 10 or 15 percent, we haven’t decided yet.”
Meanwhile US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick told CBS News on Sunday that small countries, including “the Latin American countries, the Caribbean countries, many countries in Africa” would have a baseline tariff of 10 percent.
On Tuesday, Trump announced he was reducing a threatened 25 percent tariff on Japan to 15 percent in exchange for the country removing restrictions on some US products, as well as offering to back a US$550 billion investment fund.
The White House has also discussed a similar fund with South Korea, a nation also focused on reaching a 15 percent rate, including on autos, people familiar with the matter said.
The Philippines is aiming to bring down its own tariff rate to the 15 percent level from the current 19 percent, Philippine Ambassador to the US Jose Manuel Romualdez said.
Meanwhile, officials in Vietnam are weighing the likely cost of their deal.
Hanoi estimates its exports to the US could decline by as much as one-third if higher tariffs announced by Trump take effect, an internal government assessment showed.
Other nations, including India and members of the EU, are still pushing for an agreement before the heightened tariffs go into effect.
Trump on Wednesday said that he would “have a very, very simple tariff for some of the countries,” because there were so many nations that “you can’t negotiate deals with everyone.”
He said talks with the EU were “serious.”
“If they agree to open up the union to American businesses, then we will let them pay a lower tariff,” Trump said.
The EU and the US appear to be heading toward a possible trade deal, said EU diplomats, which would result in a broad 15 percent tariff on EU goods imported into the US, mirroring a framework agreement Washington struck with Japan.
EU member countries yesterday voted to approve countertariffs on 93 billion euros (US$109 billion) of US goods, which could be imposed should the bloc fail to reach a trade deal with Washington, EU diplomats said.
The European Commission on Wednesday said that its primary focus was to achieve a negotiated outcome with Washington to avert the 30 percent tariffs that Trump has said he would apply on Friday next week.
Additional reporting by Reuters
A proposed 100 percent tariff on chip imports announced by US President Donald Trump could shift more of Taiwan’s semiconductor production overseas, a Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER) researcher said yesterday. Trump’s tariff policy will accelerate the global semiconductor industry’s pace to establish roots in the US, leading to higher supply chain costs and ultimately raising prices of consumer electronics and creating uncertainty for future market demand, Arisa Liu (劉佩真) at the institute’s Taiwan Industry Economics Database said in a telephone interview. Trump’s move signals his intention to "restore the glory of the US semiconductor industry," Liu noted, saying that
On Ireland’s blustery western seaboard, researchers are gleefully flying giant kites — not for fun, but in the hope of generating renewable electricity and sparking a “revolution” in wind energy. “We use a kite to capture the wind and a generator at the bottom of it that captures the power,” said Padraic Doherty of Kitepower, the Dutch firm behind the venture. At its test site in operation since September 2023 near the small town of Bangor Erris, the team transports the vast 60-square-meter kite from a hangar across the lunar-like bogland to a generator. The kite is then attached by a
Foxconn Technology Co (鴻準精密), a metal casing supplier owned by Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), yesterday announced plans to invest US$1 billion in the US over the next decade as part of its business transformation strategy. The Apple Inc supplier said in a statement that its board approved the investment on Thursday, as part of a transformation strategy focused on precision mold development, smart manufacturing, robotics and advanced automation. The strategy would have a strong emphasis on artificial intelligence (AI), the company added. The company said it aims to build a flexible, intelligent production ecosystem to boost competitiveness and sustainability. Foxconn
STILL UNCLEAR: Several aspects of the policy still need to be clarified, such as whether the exemptions would expand to related products, PwC Taiwan warned The TAIEX surged yesterday, led by gains in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), after US President Donald Trump announced a sweeping 100 percent tariff on imported semiconductors — while exempting companies operating or building plants in the US, which includes TSMC. The benchmark index jumped 556.41 points, or 2.37 percent, to close at 24,003.77, breaching the 24,000-point level and hitting its highest close this year, Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) data showed. TSMC rose NT$55, or 4.89 percent, to close at a record NT$1,180, as the company is already investing heavily in a multibillion-dollar plant in Arizona that led investors to assume
RSS