Taiwan today signaled that a tariff deal with the US could come soon, after its negotiators left for the latest round of talks with Washington, saying both sides are expected to announce where they have reached a "consensus."
Taiwan, a global semiconductor powerhouse, has been in talks with the US to get the tariff on its exports cut from 20 to 15 percent.
Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君) and Minister Without Portfolio Yang Jen-ni (楊珍妮), who leads the Cabinet’s Office of Trade Negotiations, late yesterday departed for the US for a sixth round of face-to-face consultations, the Executive Yuan’s working group on Taiwan-US trade said in statement.
Photo: CNA
The aim is a further reduction in reciprocal tariffs, securing most-favored treatment for tariffs on chips and other products, promoting a better trade balance and forming a strategic partnership on the global artificial intelligence (AI) supply chain, the statement said.
"After this round of consultations, both sides are expected to publicly announce the content on where they have reached consensus," it added, without giving details.
Taiwan would then schedule a date to sign documents with the Office of the US Trade Representative and submit the deal for review in the Legislative Yuan, the statement said.
Two people familiar with the matter said an announcement on the tariffs deal could come by the end of the month.
However, Office of Trade Negotiations spokesman Benjamin Hsu (徐崇欽) said that as the delegation had only just left, it was hard to say when "results can be achieved."
"As for announcing the outcomes, that still requires agreement by both sides," he added.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment on the meetings in Washington. It was not immediately clear which US officials would take part.
A major semiconductor producer, Taiwan has said its offer to the US included help in replicating the nation’s success in building tech clusters around dedicated science parks.
Under the deal, it is expected that chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) would commit to building more facilities in Arizona, one of the people said.
TSMC has declined to comment on whether it would invest more in the US on top of the US$165 billion that it has already pledged.
Taiwan's chips are not subject to the US tariffs.
However, US President Donald Trump yesterday imposed a 25 percent tariff on certain AI chips, such as the Nvidia H200 AI processor, under a new national security order released by the White House.
Regarding that new order, Taiwan has previously held multiple discussions with the US and reached a consensus on preferential tariff treatment for semiconductors and related products, the statement said.
"After confirming this with the US side during the current consultations, our side will provide a public explanation," it said, without elaborating.
AGING: As of last month, people aged 65 or older accounted for 20.06 percent of the total population and the number of couples who got married fell by 18,685 from 2024 Taiwan has surpassed South Korea as the country least willing to have children, with an annual crude birthrate of 4.62 per 1,000 people, Ministry of the Interior data showed yesterday. The nation was previously ranked the second-lowest country in terms of total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime. However, South Korea’s fertility rate began to recover from 2023, with total fertility rate rising from 0.72 and estimated to reach 0.82 to 0.85 by last year, and the crude birthrate projected at 6.7 per 1,000 people. Japan’s crude birthrate was projected to fall below six,
US President Donald Trump in an interview with the New York Times published on Thursday said that “it’s up to” Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be “very unhappy” with a change in the “status quo.” “He [Xi] considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing, but I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that. I hope he doesn’t do that,” Trump said. Trump made the comments in the context
SELF-DEFENSE: Tokyo has accelerated its spending goal and its defense minister said the nation needs to discuss whether it should develop nuclear-powered submarines China is ramping up objections to what it sees as Japan’s desire to acquire nuclear weapons, despite Tokyo’s longstanding renunciation of such arms, deepening another fissure in the two neighbors’ increasingly tense ties. In what appears to be a concerted effort, China’s foreign and defense ministries issued statements on Thursday condemning alleged remilitarism efforts by Tokyo. The remarks came as two of the country’s top think tanks jointly issued a 29-page report framing actions by “right-wing forces” in Japan as posing a “serious threat” to world peace. While that report did not define “right-wing forces,” the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs was
PREPAREDNESS: Given the difficulty of importing ammunition during wartime, the Ministry of National Defense said it would prioritize ‘coproduction’ partnerships A newly formed unit of the Marine Corps tasked with land-based security operations has recently replaced its aging, domestically produced rifles with more advanced, US-made M4A1 rifles, a source said yesterday. The unnamed source familiar with the matter said the First Security Battalion of the Marine Corps’ Air Defense and Base Guard Group has replaced its older T65K2 rifles, which have been in service since the late 1980s, with the newly received M4A1s. The source did not say exactly when the upgrade took place or how many M4A1s were issued to the battalion. The confirmation came after Chinese-language media reported
RSS