Analysis: What Are Taiwan's Lawmakers Doing on Latest U.S. Visit?

TaiwanPlus News

A group of Taiwan's lawmakers is in the U.S. at a particularly crucial time in the two countries' relationship. The head of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party's mission in the U.S. shines a light on what the delegation hopes to achieve.

Transcript

00:00Visit comes at a time when Taiwan is trying to deal with Trump's tariff on the country,

00:05which is a potential 32%. Is the purpose of this visit to negotiate trade?

00:11Right. My understanding is that the legislative delegation is not here to negotiate trade.

00:17The trade negotiations are under the purview of Taiwan's government and this visit is

00:22actually part of a long-standing practice of the parliamentary diplomacy.

00:27So it consists of members of the U.S. caucus and the foreign and national defense committee.

00:37President Lai has announced the early outset of this tariff negotiation would be led by an

00:46interagency tax force led by the vice premier, Zheng Li-jun. Both sides started the negotiation

00:53since April 11th. From what I heard, the discussion has been going well.

01:01You said this isn't specifically geared towards trade. Historically, what have these parliamentary

01:06groups, these parliamentary visits to Washington, D.C. been about?

01:10Many of the touch points between the U.S. and Taiwan delegation of such will likely to engage with

01:19their congressional counterparts as well as broader Washington's policy community. But I imagine this

01:27time around, as they say in the media, tariff and maybe security issues will come up in these type of

01:34discussions. What do you think the U.S. policymakers will be looking to get out of these

01:39talks or what kind of points would you think they'll be talking about?

01:43I'll just point out Treasury Secretary Besant mentioned there are 15 to 18 important trading

01:51partners that the U.S. will prioritize in the trading negotiations and tariff negotiations. And

01:56Taiwan is the U.S. seven largest trading partner. So we're certainly in that ballpark. Overall, the U.S.

02:04is looking to reduce trade imbalance reinvigorate U.S. industrial base, which also confirms to Taiwan's

02:11economic strategy as our major investment and procurement of energy and defense articles are

02:18already underway.

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