The nation's representative to the WTO, Lin Yi-fu (林義夫), yesterday called for Taiwanese entrepreneurs operating in the US to help drum up US support for a free trade agreement (FTA) between the two countries.
Lin made the appeal while delivering a speech on the WTO and the government's role in the Geneva-based world trade regulatory body at a board meeting of the Taiwanese Chambers of Commerce of North America in Dallas, Texas.
Lin, who arrived in Dallas on Thursday to attend the meeting from Friday to yesterday, said Taiwan was engaging in negotiations with the US about signing an FTA, which he said would benefit Taiwanese companies.
He voiced optimism that all US-based Taiwanese corporations would join forces with the government to lobby for an FTA between the two nations to be signed as soon as possible with the goal of boosting bilateral trade and economic relations.
The US is Taiwan's third-largest trade partner after China and Japan, with bilateral trade reaching US$55.02 billion last year.
The US has been reluctant to launch talks on a trade and investment framework agreement, a stepping stone toward an FTA, because it says Taiwan's intellectual property rights protection is poor. It is also unhappy about Taiwan's rice import quotas and limitations on access to Taiwan's pharmaceutical market.
CHIP WAR: Tariffs on Taiwanese chips would prompt companies to move their factories, but not necessarily to the US, unleashing a ‘global cross-sector tariff war’ US President Donald Trump would “shoot himself in the foot” if he follows through on his recent pledge to impose higher tariffs on Taiwanese and other foreign semiconductors entering the US, analysts said. Trump’s plans to raise tariffs on chips manufactured in Taiwan to as high as 100 percent would backfire, macroeconomist Henry Wu (吳嘉隆) said. He would “shoot himself in the foot,” Wu said on Saturday, as such economic measures would lead Taiwanese chip suppliers to pass on additional costs to their US clients and consumers, and ultimately cause another wave of inflation. Trump has claimed that Taiwan took up to
A start-up in Mexico is trying to help get a handle on one coastal city’s plastic waste problem by converting it into gasoline, diesel and other fuels. With less than 10 percent of the world’s plastics being recycled, Petgas’ idea is that rather than letting discarded plastic become waste, it can become productive again as fuel. Petgas developed a machine in the port city of Boca del Rio that uses pyrolysis, a thermodynamic process that heats plastics in the absence of oxygen, breaking it down to produce gasoline, diesel, kerosene, paraffin and coke. Petgas chief technology officer Carlos Parraguirre Diaz said that in
Japan intends to closely monitor the impact on its currency of US President Donald Trump’s new tariffs and is worried about the international fallout from the trade imposts, Japanese Minister of Finance Katsunobu Kato said. “We need to carefully see how the exchange rate and other factors will be affected and what form US monetary policy will take in the future,” Kato said yesterday in an interview with Fuji Television. Japan is very concerned about how the tariffs might impact the global economy, he added. Kato spoke as nations and firms brace for potential repercussions after Trump unleashed the first salvo of
SUPPORT: The government said it would help firms deal with supply disruptions, after Trump signed orders imposing tariffs of 25 percent on imports from Canada and Mexico The government pledged to help companies with operations in Mexico, such as iPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), shift production lines and investment if needed to deal with higher US tariffs. The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday announced measures to help local firms cope with the US tariff increases on Canada, Mexico, China and other potential areas. The ministry said that it would establish an investment and trade service center in the US to help Taiwanese firms assess the investment environment in different US states, plan supply chain relocation strategies and
RSS