China is effectively suspending implementation of additional export controls on rare earth metals and terminating investigations targeting US companies in the semiconductor supply chain, the White House announced.
The White House on Saturday issued a fact sheet outlining some details of the trade pact agreed to earlier in the week by US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) that aimed to ease tensions between the world’s two largest economies.
Under the deal, China is to issue general licenses valid for exports of rare earths, gallium, germanium, antimony and graphite “for the benefit of US end users and their suppliers around the world,” the White House said, meaning the effective removal of controls China imposed in April this year and October 2022.
Photo: EPA
The US and China previously said Beijing would suspend more restrictive controls announced last month for one year.
Washington is pausing some of Trump’s tariffs on China for an additional year and is halting plans to implement a 100 percent tariff on Chinese exports to the US. The White House said that the US is to extend the expiration of certain Section 301 tariff exclusions, currently due to expire on Nov. 29, this year until Nov. 10 next year.
Under the trade pact, according to the White House, China agreed to pause sweeping controls on rare earth magnets in exchange for a US agreement to roll back an expansion of curbs on Chinese companies.
The US agreed to cut a fentanyl-related tariff in half, from 10 percent from 20 percent, while Beijing resumes purchases of US soybeans and other agricultural products. The US has said China is to buy 12 million tonnes of soybeans during the current season, and a minimum of 25 million tonnes a year for the next three years.
Trump on Friday indicated he would like to remove all of the fentanyl-related tariffs if China continued to crack down on exports of the drug and precursor chemicals used to make it.
“As soon as we see that, we’ll get rid of the other 10 percent,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday.
While the agreement has calmed tensions, the pact might be a short-term truce in an extended trade fight with the measures just meant to last one year, and despite addressing some key issues — and with both sides winning key concessions — the agreement fails to comprehensively address all of the issues at the heart of the US-China trade fight and other geopolitical flashpoints, such as Taiwan and Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Trump has signed off on a plan that would see an US consortium buy the US operations of ByteDance Ltd’s (字節跳動) TikTok app, but Beijing has yet to formally approve that sale. The US president has said there would be cooperation on energy, saying that China had agreed to purchases of oil and gas from Alaska.
Starlux Airlines Co (星宇航空) today unveiled a long-haul network expansion plan at a shareholders’ meeting in Taipei, including direct flights to Barcelona, Spain, and Zurich, Switzerland, as well as a service connecting Taipei, Sydney and New Zealand. Starlux is to become the first Taiwanese carrier to offer non-stop services to the two European cities, while the inaugural oceanic route is expected to expand transit opportunities within the Australia-New Zealand market, Starlux said. Flight services to Chicago, Dallas, Washington and New York are under evaluation, the airline added. Prior to the shareholders’ meeting, the airline earlier this year announced that it would be
Netherlands-based semiconductor equipment supplier ASML Holding NV yesterday said that it is planning to hire an additional 1,000 people in Taiwan this year in response to growing demand from clients. ASML had previously planned to recruit 600 people this year, but that the plan has been adjusted upward, ASML vice president and ASML Taiwan general manager Grace Wang (汪佳慧) told reporters. ASML has a workforce of more than 4,500 in Taiwan, accounting for about 10 percent of its global total, Wang said. This year’s recruitment campaign would focus on adding people in the customer support, manufacturing and supply chain domains to assist ASML
UNDER MICROSCOPE: Taiwan detained three people who allegedly conspired to buy servers in Taiwan and export them using fraudulent documentation, prosecutors said Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Saturday urged Super Micro Computer Inc to tighten up on compliance after Taiwan detained three people this week for allegedly making fraudulent declarations about artificial intelligence (AI) servers made by its US partner. The development marked the nation’s first crackdown on semiconductor smuggling, which grew after the US slapped restrictions on exports of high-end chips such as Nvidia AI accelerators to China. Nvidia is “rigorous” in explaining regulations to all of its partners, Huang told reporters after arriving in Taipei. “Ultimately Super Micro has to run their own company,” he said in response to
Nvidia Corp yesterday announced that CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) would attend an employee meeting in Taipei tomorrow to celebrate the launch of the company’s Taiwan headquarters project. Huang would attend a gathering at the site of Nvidia’s planned headquarters in Beitou Shilin Technology Park (北投士林科技園區), the company said in a statement. After arriving in Taiwan on Saturday last week, Huang told reporters that he plans to meet with Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) chairman Barry Lam (林百里) and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家), and would attend the groundbreaking ceremony for Nvidia’s Taiwan headquarters tomorrow. Nvidia has not yet applied
RSS