A WTO panel has broadly backed the US, Japan and Taiwan in their bid to overturn controversial EU tariffs on three electronics products, a US Trade Representative official said on Monday in Washington.
“I can confirm that the panel agreed with the US, Japan and Taiwan on essentially all of our claims,” the official said, in response to published reports.
The official spoke on condition she not be identified because the interim panel ruling is still confidential.
The three countries sued the EU at the WTO in July 2008, saying EU duties on flat-panel displays, multifunction printers and TV set-top boxes violated the WTO’s Information Technology Agreement (ITA).
The agreement, which eliminates import duties on goods such as computer screens and printers, seeks to boost trade in high-tech goods around the world.
The panel handed its interim report to participants on Friday. A final report, which rarely makes substantial changes to the interim report, is expected in September.
“The report says that the EU’s technology tariffs violate its obligations to the WTO,” a second source in Brussels said.
Both sources declined to provide more details.
The EU’s executive commission said it was studying the report.
“It is a technical, complex issue,” spokesman John Clancy said, declining to say more because the report was confidential.
John Neuffer, vice president for global policy at the Information Technology Industry Council in Washington, said if reports of a victory for the US, Japan and Taiwan “are accurate, this would be a an important pro-innovation, pro-growth, pro-jobs result.”
He urged the EU “to quickly renounce its past flawed interpretations of the ITA, eliminate duties on the products at issue in the dispute, and implement the ITA as it should be implemented — to spur growth and innovation globally.”
The EU in September 2008 called for an overhaul of the ITA, saying new products and markets should be added to the list.
IDENTITY: Compared with other platforms, TikTok’s algorithm pushes a ‘disproportionately high ratio’ of pro-China content, a study has found Young Taiwanese are increasingly consuming Chinese content on TikTok, which is changing their views on identity and making them less resistant toward China, researchers and politicians were cited as saying by foreign media. Asked to suggest the best survival strategy for a small country facing a powerful neighbor, students at National Chia-Yi Girls’ Senior High School said “Taiwan must do everything to avoid provoking China into attacking it,” the Financial Times wrote on Friday. Young Taiwanese between the ages of 20 and 24 in the past were the group who most strongly espoused a Taiwanese identity, but that is no longer
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake and several aftershocks battered southern Taiwan early this morning, causing houses and roads to collapse and leaving dozens injured and 50 people isolated in their village. A total of 26 people were reported injured and sent to hospitals due to the earthquake as of late this morning, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Welfare figures. In Sising Village (西興) of Chiayi County's Dapu Township (大埔), the location of the quake's epicenter, severe damage was seen and roads entering the village were blocked, isolating about 50 villagers. Another eight people who were originally trapped inside buildings in Tainan
‘ARMED GROUP’: Two defendants used Chinese funds to form the ‘Republic of China Taiwan Military Government,’ posing a threat to national security, prosecutors said A retired lieutenant general has been charged after using funds from China to recruit military personnel for an “armed” group that would assist invading Chinese forces, prosecutors said yesterday. The retired officer, Kao An-kuo (高安國), was among six people indicted for contravening the National Security Act (國家安全法), the High Prosecutors’ Office said in a statement. The group visited China multiple times, separately and together, from 2018 to last year, where they met Chinese military intelligence personnel for instructions and funding “to initiate and develop organizations for China,” prosecutors said. Their actions posed a “serious threat” to “national security and social stability,” the statement
NATURAL INTERRUPTION: As cables deteriorate, core wires snap in progression along the cable, which does not happen if they are hit by an anchor, an official said Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) immediately switched to a microwave backup system to maintain communications between Taiwan proper and Lienchiang County (Matsu) after two undersea cables malfunctioned due to natural deterioration, the Ministry of Digital Affairs told an emergency news conference yesterday morning. Two submarine cables connecting Taiwan proper and the outlying county — the No. 2 and No. 3 Taiwan-Matsu cables — were disconnected early yesterday morning and on Wednesday last week respectively, the nation’s largest telecom said. “After receiving the report that the No. 2 cable had failed, the ministry asked Chunghwa Telecom to immediately activate a microwave backup system, with
RSS