The first meeting of a newly launched Taiwan-US trade initiative would be held in Washington before the end of this month, with Taipei’s ultimate goal being the signing of a trade agreement with Washington, Taiwan’s top trade negotiator said.
The first in-person meeting of the “US-Taiwan Initiative on 21st-Century Trade” since its launch on June 1 would be held in the last week of this month, Minister Without Portfolio John Deng (鄧振中) told the Central News Agency during an interview in London on Friday.
The trade pact Taiwan aims to sign with the US would not be a free-trade agreement that involves tariff negotiations, Deng said.
Photo: CNA
That is because the US Congress has not authorized its government to sign free-trade agreements with any country, he said.
Deng would not give a timetable for the signing of such an agreement with Washington, saying only that Taipei has demonstrated its clear commitment to reaching the deal.
The two sides would focus their negotiations on 11 areas, including trade facilitation, regulatory practices, standards, state-owned enterprises, nonmarket policies and practices, and countering corruption, the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) said in a news release.
Other areas to be touched on within the initiative are the support of small and medium-sized enterprises in trade, digital trade and worker-centric trade, while the two sides would also explore ways to promote agriculture and climate action, the USTR said.
The first in-person meeting would focus on exactly how both sides should engage in “meaningful” discussions on the 11 topics, Deng said.
Both sides would not engage in more in-depth, substantial talks until Taiwan and the US have completed related preparations, including talking with private businesses, he added.
The new trade initiative was launched after Taiwan was excluded from the US-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), launched on May 23 by US President Joe Biden.
Comparing the new trade initiative to the IPEF, Deng said the former is more concrete than the latter, as Taiwan knows exactly what to expect in the negotiations.
However, he said that Taiwan is still hoping to join the IPEF.
Deng was visiting the UK from Thursday to Saturday to meet with British politicians and academics to learn from their experience in applying to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) trade pact.
The CPTPP, which grew out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership after the US left the pact in January 2017, is one of the world’s biggest trade blocs, representing a market of 500 million people and accounting for 13.5 percent of global trade.
Its 11 signatories are Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.
Taiwan applied to join the CPTPP on Sept. 22 last year, less than a week after China also applied for membership to the trade group, suggesting Taipei might have been rushing in response to Beijing’s bid.
Asked to comment, Deng said both sides of the Taiwan Strait have now officially applied to join the CPTPP.
“We are hoping that each side can focus on its own application and play by the rules” before the CPTPP members decide objectively on each application based on their own evaluations, he said.
The UK was the first country to apply to join the CPTPP after the bloc was launched in 2018. London made official its application in January last year and began talks that June.
British Secretary of State for International Trade Anne-Marie Trevelyan last month said that her country is hoping to conclude talks on joining the Pacific trade bloc by the end of this year.
Asked what Taiwan can learn from the UK, Deng said he was told that CPTPP members have been extremely meticulous during their review process in asking applicants to provide detailed responses and explanations.
“We have to be prepared for all kinds of possible questions raised by CPTPP member states to facilitate the accession,” he said.
Taiwan has to be well-prepared for this and there is no room to slow down, Deng added.
‘LAGGING BEHIND’: The NATO secretary-general called on democratic allies to be ‘clear-eyed’ about Beijing’s military buildup, urging them to boost military spending NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte mentioning China’s bullying of Taiwan and its ambition to reshape the global order has significance during a time when authoritarian states are continuously increasing their aggression, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday. In a speech at the Carnegie Europe think tank in Brussels on Thursday, Rutte said Beijing is bullying Taiwan and would start to “nibble” at Taiwan if Russia benefits from a post-invasion peace deal with Ukraine. He called on democratic allies to boost defense investments and also urged NATO members to increase defense spending in the face of growing military threats from Russia
LEAP FORWARD: The new tanks are ‘decades more advanced than’ the army’s current fleet and would enable it to compete with China’s tanks, a source said A shipment of 38 US-made M1A2T Abrams tanks — part of a military procurement package from the US — arrived at the Port of Taipei early yesterday. The vehicles are the first batch of 108 tanks and other items that then-US president Donald Trump announced for Taiwan in 2019. The Ministry of National Defense at the time allocated NT$40.5 billion (US$1.25 billion) for the purchase. To accommodate the arrival of the tanks, the port suspended the use of all terminals and storage area machinery from 6pm last night until 7am this morning. The tanks are expected to be deployed at the army’s training
TECH CONFERENCE: Input from industry and academic experts can contribute to future policymaking across government agencies, President William Lai said Multifunctional service robots could be the next new area in which Taiwan could play a significant role, given its strengths in chip manufacturing and software design, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman and chief executive C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said yesterday. “In the past two months, our customers shared a lot of their future plans with me. Artificial intelligence [AI] and AI applications were the most talked about subjects in our conversation,” Wei said in a speech at the National Science and Technology Conference in Taipei. TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, counts Nvidia Corp, Advanced Micro Devices Inc, Apple Inc and
PEACEFUL RESOLUTION: A statement issued following a meeting between Australia and Britain reiterated support for Taiwan and opposition to change in the Taiwan Strait Canada should support the peaceful resolution of Taiwan’s destiny according to the will of Taiwanese, Canadian lawmakers said in a resolution marking the second anniversary of that nation’s Indo-Pacific strategy on Monday. The Canadian House of Commons committee on Canada-Chinese relations made the comment as part of 34 recommendations for the new edition of the strategy, adding that Ottawa should back Taiwan’s meaningful participation in international organizations. Canada’s Indo-Pacific Strategy, first published in October 2022, emphasized that the region’s security, trade, human rights, democracy and environmental protection would play a crucial role in shaping Canada’s future. The strategy called for Canada to deepen
RSS