Taiwan would be a key player in helping US president-elect Donald Trump fulfill his “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan due to the nation’s crucial position in the chip sector, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday.
Lin made the remarks during a legislative session after it became apparent the former US president would be returning to the White House for another four years after he defeated US Vice President Kamala Harris in Tuesday’s presidential election.
He also said the Taiwan-US partnership is indispensable to the US becoming “great again,” because the chip industry is closely linked to both countries’ prosperity.
Photo: Reuters
Both countries share a common interest in continuing to expand chip cooperation, Lin said.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (台積電) investments in the US also benefit Taiwan’s chip industry overall, as it makes the sector more resilient, he added.
During his presidential campaign, Trump made controversial remarks about Taiwan, including accusing the nation of “stealing” the chip industry from the US decades ago.
He has also said that Taipei does not pay the US to fund its defense, despite Taiwan having outstanding orders worth US$19 billion for US weapons systems.
During the campaign, Trump said Taiwan should devote 10 percent of its GDP to defense.
This would total NT$2.6 trillion (US$80.6 billion) per year, which lawmakers said was an unreasonable demand.
Asked by lawmakers to comment on what his ministry would do if Trump demanded Taiwan invest such a high level of funds in defense, Lin said that Taiwan has been paying the US for its defense for decades, without elaborating.
Since the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) took office in May 2016, Taiwan’s defense budget has almost doubled to more than NT$600 billion from more than NT$330 billion, he said, adding that such increases are expected to continue in years to come.
He added that the US has yet to deliver about US$20 billion of weapons systems purchased by Taiwan.
Lin said he was optimistic about the Trump administration’s foreign policy, as much of the ongoing Taiwan-US cooperation during the administration of US President Joe Biden began in Trump’s first term from 2017 to 2021.
During that time, Trump normalized arms sales, established the Economic Prosperity Partnership Dialogue platform and lifted decades-long restrictions on contact between US and Taiwanese officials, he said.
Lin said this all represented major progress in Taiwan-US relations, and that his ministry would work to further progress links when Trump takes office again.
Meanwhile, Presidential Office spokeswoman Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) rejected a report that President William Lai (賴清德) was considering calling Trump to congratulate him on his election victory.
“There are no plans to seek to make a call [to Trump],” Kuo said in a statement, adding that the report, which has not been verified by the Presidential Office, was “not true.”
The president has sent a congratulatory letter to Trump and vice president-elect J.D. Vance through Taiwan’s representative office in Washington, the spokeswoman added.
Bloomberg yesterday cited unnamed sources as reporting that Taipei would try to make the call, as former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) did in December 2016.
Tsai and Trump had a telephone conversation a month after the latter was elected president, the first time since 1979 that a US president had spoken directly with a Taiwanese president.
Asked by Bloomberg if there are plans to call Trump, Deputy Secretary-General to the President Mark Ho (何志偉) said: “We will follow the usual practice to contact and congratulate him.”
At a separate news conference, Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Minister Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said that whether Trump would fulfill his pledge to impose a 60 percent tariff on all goods imported from China remains to be seen.
If Trump implements high tariffs, Taiwanese businesspeople in China might need to consider relocating their businesses to other countries, as many manufacture goods and export them to the US, he said.
Citing a gradual decline in Taiwanese investment in China in recent years, Lin said that at one point, Taiwanese investment in China accounted for 83.8 percent of the nation’s overall overseas investment, but it had fallen to 11.4 percent last year.
As of September, only 7.8 percent of Taiwan’s external investment was in China, he said.
The decline is likely to accelerate if the US raises tariffs on Chinese goods, he said.
Taiwanese businesspeople in China are advised to prepare in advance by diversifying their operations, he added.
Additional reporting by Shelley Shan
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