00:00So there's been a lot of movement on these tariffs and trade policy recently.
00:04Let's just start with where exactly do the US and China stand on tariffs now?
00:09In large part, you can think of it as being dialed back to where it was on April 2,
00:15when these tariffs were announced. So the US is essentially now treating China the same as
00:22all the other countries, which were given that 90-day reprieve on the increase of the country
00:28specific rates. So although China has now had to deal with a month of 125% tariffs going forward,
00:37they'll have that same sort of 90-day window that everyone else had starting back in April.
00:42So President Donald Trump has said that even if higher tariffs were to go back into effect on China,
00:48they wouldn't be as high as they were before at 145%. So regardless of what happens in their
00:55upcoming trade talks, do you think it's fair to say that we've passed peak tariffs?
01:01I think there are certainly reasons to look at it that way. So we just saw the publication of the
01:09executive order that sort of implements this at a somewhat technical level. They dialed it back to
01:1534%, which is what it was originally when the reciprocal tariffs were announced and the country
01:21specific rates came out. There's also some movement on the de minimis side. De minimis is sort of
01:27shorthand for a provision of US trade law that allows entries valued at $800 or less to enter without
01:36incurring duty liability. There's a lot that's still in play, but there is reason to look at this and say,
01:43okay, this is most likely we've seen the top level and perhaps it's behind us.
01:50Taiwan is in the middle of its own trade talks with the US. Do you think these developments with
01:54China might impact Taiwan's negotiations? One is you see in the US-China deal,
02:01they're back to 10%. They're not going lower than that. You saw the same thing in the US-UK deal that
02:08was announced last Thursday. A lot of the provisions in that US-UK deal touch on sort of maintaining the
02:16benefits on a bilateral basis. So there is a concern that's been expressed sort of in that
02:22negotiating text and by Trump administration officials elsewhere to the effect that
02:28they want to combat sort of transshipment. They want to combat evasion. They don't want to
02:34enter into a deal with the trading partner and then have that become a funnel for goods from,
02:40let's say China or other countries with which they haven't sort of come to terms with. Taiwan's actions
02:46show that they're trying to address it. And I think they're wise and right to do so from a negotiating
02:54standpoint.
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