Talks between Taiwan and the US under the bilateral Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) will likely not be held this year, as the administration of US President Donald Trump has yet to fill the vacant deputy trade representative posts, Minister Without Portfolio John Deng (鄧振中) has said.
The talks have been conducted by the two nations’ deputy trade ministers since 2004, said Deng, who also heads the Cabinet’s Office of Trade Negotiations.
However, three deputy representative positions at the Office of the US Trade Representative are vacant, and while the Trump administration has named people to take those positions, they have yet to be confirmed by the US Congress, Deng said.
Even if it quickly approves the nominations, “there will not be time to hold [the TIFA talks] this year,” given the time it takes to process the appointments at an administrative level, Deng said.
Taiwan and the US, one of the nation’s largest trading partners, signed the bilateral trade agreement in 1994. The two sides have held 10 rounds of trade talks since then under the TIFA platform, the most important negotiating channel for high-ranking trade officials from the two nations.
In 2004, the TIFA talks were elevated to a meeting led by officials at the deputy ministerial level.
The most recent round of the talks was presided over by Vice Minister of Economic Affairs Wang Mei-hua (王美花) and former deputy US trade representative Robert Holleyman.
The first TIFA meeting was held in Taipei in 1995, and Taipei and Washington hosted the meeting on a rotating basis in 1997, 1998, 2004, 2006 and 2007 before a five-year hiatus from 2008 to 2012 due to disputes over imports of US beef to Taiwan.
The meeting was resumed in 2013 after Taiwan approved imports of US beef containing residues of ractopamine, a feed additive that promotes leanness in animals, but is banned in Taiwan and many other nations because of safety concerns.
The talks have been held each year since then.
Over the past two decades, issues brought up at the Taiwan-US trade talks have included Taiwan’s WTO membership, and its bids for a free-trade agreement with the US and participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
COMMITMENT: The world’s biggest contract chipmaker said that its new 2nm chips, as well as next-generation, cutting-edge 1.4nm chips, will be produced in Taiwan Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said that the majority of its most advanced chips would continue to be manufactured in Taiwan and that it is boosting advanced chip packaging capacity to catch up with fast-growing demand driven by generative artificial intelligence (AI) applications like ChatGPT. Deeply rooted in Taiwan, TSMC is expanding production capacity for its most advanced 3-nanometer (nm) chips at its Tainan fab and is building new plants to produce new 2-nanometer chips in Hsinchu and Taichung in 2025. The chipmaker also plans to produce next-generation, cutting-edge 1.4-nanometer chips, which are currently under development, at home, it
FIRST STEP: Business groups in Taiwan welcomed the deal, which does not include tariff reductions at this stage, as they called for the elimination of double taxation Taiwan and the US yesterday signed an initial agreement under the US-Taiwan Initiative on 21st-Century Trade. The agreement was signed yesterday morning by Representative to the US Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) and American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Managing Director Ingrid Larson in Washington, the Office of Trade Negotiations in Taipei said. The ceremony was witnessed by Minister Without Portfolio John Deng (鄧振中) and Deputy US Trade Representative Sarah Bianchi. Taiwan and the US started talks under the initiative in August last year, after Taipei was left out of the Washington-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework. “The deal that will be signed tonight is not only very historic,
PASSAGE DISPUTE: A US and Canadian transit was a provocation and an attempt to ‘exercise hegemony of navigation,’ China’s defense ministry told a forum in Singapore The Ministry of National Defense yesterday urged the Chinese Communist Party to avoid provocative behavior after a Chinese navy ship crossed the paths of a US destroyer and Canadian frigate transiting the Taiwan Strait. A Chinese ship on Saturday “executed maneuvers in an unsafe manner in the vicinity of [the USS] Chung-Hoon,” an American destroyer, the US Indo-Pacific Command said in a statement. The vessel “overtook Chung-Hoon on their port side and crossed their bow at 150 yards [137m]. Chung-Hoon maintained course and slowed to 10 [knots, 18.5kph] to avoid a collision,” the statement said. It then “crossed Chung-Hoon’s bow a second time
HARD-WON FREEDOM: Beijing’s 1989 crackdown on protesters has not been and should not be forgotten, as China tightens its grip on Hong Kong, Lai said Taiwanese enjoy democracy and freedom and have multiple ways to express their creativity, and hopefully young people in China would also one day have the freedom to sing and express themselves, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said yesterday, commemorating the Tiananmen Square Massacre. Yesterday was the 34th anniversary of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s bloody crackdown on student-led protests in Beijing in 1989, also known as the June Fourth Incident. Tsai posted a photograph taken in March in a subway station in Guizhou, China, where hundreds of young people gathered to sing People With No Ideals Don’t Get Hurt (沒有理想的人不傷心), saying that they