Lawmakers in the US Senate and House of Representatives on Wednesday introduced companion resolutions calling on US president-elect Joe Biden to enter a free-trade agreement with Taiwan — a move welcomed by Taipei.
US Senator Pat Toomey, a Republican, introduced the resolution in the Senate, while 25 other Republican senators cosponsored it.
“Building closer trade ties between the United States and Taiwan is a win-win for both countries,” Toomey said in a news release.
With an agreement, both economies would grow faster, and the US would strengthen its relationship with a key regional ally and increase its economic engagement in the Indo-Pacific region, he said, urging the incoming Biden administration to prioritize such a deal.
A similar resolution was introduced in the House by US Representative Guy Reschenthaler, also a Republican. The House resolution had six sponsors, including Congressional Taiwan Caucus Chairs Steve Chabot and Mario Diaz-Balart.
“This legislation is a critical step toward building a stronger diplomatic partnership with Taiwan, expanding economic growth and job creation through increased access to markets in the Indo-Pacific region, and countering the Chinese Communist Party’s hostilities toward Taiwan,” Reschenthaler said in a separate news release.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) yesterday thanked the US lawmakers for their robust support for expanding bilateral trade ties.
In December last year, 161 US representatives across parties wrote to US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, urging him to start negotiations on a bilateral trade agreement, she said.
The US’ Taiwan Allies International Protection and Enhancement Initiative Act, enacted in March, also supports improved trade ties between Taipei and Washington, she added.
Taiwan would continue to seek support for a bilateral trade pact from various sectors in the US, while deepening bilateral trade relations through different platforms, Ou said.
Despite warming relations between Taipei and Washington, a bilateral meeting under the Trade and Investment Framework Agreement, mainly overseen by the Office of the US Trade Representative, has not been held since October 2016.
“I’m not going to enter any new trade agreement with anybody until we have made major investments here at home and in our workers,” Biden told the New York Times on Dec. 2.
He later named Katherine Tai (戴琪) — who was born in Connecticut to Chinese-born parents who lived in Taiwan and were naturalized in the US in 1979 — to be his trade representative.
Tai’s judgements on trade issues would likely follow the traditional stance of the US Democratic Party, the ministry has said.
SELF-RELIANCE: Taiwan would struggle to receive aid in the event of an invasion, so it must prepare to ‘hold its own’ for the first 70 days of a war, a defense expert said Taiwan should strengthen infrastructure, stock up on reserves and step up efforts to encourage Taiwanese to fight against an enemy, legislators and experts said on Tuesday last week. The comments sought to summarize what the nation should learn from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has exceeded 300 days, since Feb. 24 last year. Institute of National Defense and Security Research fellow Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲) said that the war in Ukraine highlighted the importance of being ready for war. Taiwan’s development of an “asymmetrical warfare” doctrine and extending mandatory conscription to one year is a good start to preparation of defense against a
The Central Epidemic Command Center yesterday said it would delay the lifting of the indoor mask mandate, citing public health considerations and ongoing discussions on how the policy should be implemented. Earlier this week, Centers for Disease Control Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥), who is the CECC’s spokesman, said officials from several ministries were working on the policy and an announcement would be made yesterday. However, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝), who heads the CECC, yesterday said that the policy was still under review. Wang said its implementation would be “delayed slightly” due to three main factors. First, the center
END OF SERIES: As the first generation of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines are set to expire, the CECC would no longer offer them to children younger than four years old The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday reported the nation’s first case of a person infected with the Omicron XBB.1.5 subvariant of SARS-CoV-2. The Taiwanese man in his 20s arrived from Canada on Jan. 22, said Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞), who is deputy head of the CECC’s medical response division. He tested positive after reporting having a runny nose and muscle soreness while in airport quarantine, Lo said. The XBB.1.5 subvariant is the dominant strain in the US, but there is no evidence to suggest that it causes more severe illness than other Omicron subvariants, he said,
NORMALIZING TIES: The delegation led by the KMT’s Johnny Chiang is to meet with British lawmakers, think tanks and business groups to discuss developments A legislative delegation led by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) arrived in the UK yesterday to rally support for Taiwan’s bid to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). Chiang heads the Legislative Yuan’s Taiwan-UK Interparliamentary Amity Association. The delegation also includes KMT legislators Ma Wen-chun (馬文君), Wen Yu-hsia (溫玉霞), Wu Sz-huai (吳斯懷), Sandy Yu (游毓蘭) and Wu I-ding (吳怡玎). The group is to meet with British lawmakers Alicia Kearns, who chairs the British House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee; Tobias Ellwood, who chairs the House Defence Select Committee; and Bob Stewart, who cochairs the
RSS