Taiwan and the US have not yet scheduled a date for their next round of talks under the bilateral Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA), the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said yesterday.
The confirmation came a day after Minister Without Portfolio John Deng (鄧振中), who also heads the Cabinet’s Office of Trade Negotiations, said that TIFA talks were unlikely to be held this year, because the administration of US President Donald Trump has yet to fill vacant deputy trade representative posts.
Three deputy representative positions at the Office of the US Trade Representative are vacant, Deng said, adding that while the Trump administration has named people to fill those positions, they have not yet been confirmed by the US Congress.
Even if the US Congress quickly approves the nominations, “there will not be time to hold [TIFA talks] this year,” given the time it takes to process the appointments at an administrative level, Deng added.
“Our TIFA council meetings with Taiwan typically include the deputy US trade representative,” AIT spokesman Sonia Urbom said. “This position is currently vacant, so that makes it difficult to make decisions about the scheduling of a TIFA meeting.”
Taiwan and the US signed the bilateral trade agreement in 1994 and have held 10 rounds of trade talks since then.
TIFA is the major negotiating channel for high-ranking trade officials of the two nations, led by officials at the deputy ministerial level.
The most recent round of the talks last year was led by Vice Minister of Economic Affairs Wang Mei-hua (王美花) and then-deputy US trade representative Robert Holleyman.
The first TIFA meeting was held in 1995 and continued in 1997, 1998, 2004, 2006 and 2007, taking place in Taipei and Washington on a rotating basis before a five-year hiatus from 2008 to 2012 due to disputes over imports of US beef containing the “leanness-enhancing” drug ractopamine.
The US regarded Taiwan’s ractopamine ban as a trade barrier and implied on numerous occasions that a resumption of bilateral talks under the TIFA rested on the resolution of the beef issue.
The Legislative Yuan in July 2012 passed amendments to a Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation (食品安全衛生管理法), paving the way for imports of US beef containing ractopamine.
TIFA talks subsequently resumed in March 2013 in Taipei.
DEEPER REVIEW: After receiving 19 hospital reports of suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health applied for an epidemiological investigation A buffet restaurant in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) is to be fined NT$3 million (US$91,233) after it remained opened despite an order to suspend operations following reports that 32 people had been treated for suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. The health department said it on Tuesday received reports from hospitals of people who had suspected food poisoning symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and diarrhea, after they ate at an INPARADISE (饗饗) branch in Breeze Xinyi on Sunday and Monday. As more than six people who ate at the restaurant sought medical treatment, the department ordered the
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
Taiwan’s population last year shrank further and births continued to decline to a yearly low, the Ministry of the Interior announced today. The ministry published the 2024 population demographics statistics, highlighting record lows in births and bringing attention to Taiwan’s aging population. The nation’s population last year stood at 23,400,220, a decrease of 20,222 individuals compared to 2023. Last year, there were 134,856 births, representing a crude birth rate of 5.76 per 1,000 people, a slight decline from 2023’s 135,571 births and 5.81 crude birth rate. This decrease of 715 births resulted in a new record low per the ministry’s data. Since 2016, which saw
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
RSS