00:00The U.S.-Trump administration has released a long-awaited list of tariff rates for countries across the world, including Taiwan.
00:07Most goods from the country will be tariffed at 20% starting next week, a higher rate than some other Asian countries.
00:14But President Lai Chin-de says that's only temporary and that Taiwan and the U.S. will soon announce a broader trade deal with lower tariffs.
00:22For more on this, we go to reporter Chris Goran joining us live from our Taipei newsroom.
00:27Chris, how exactly would these tariffs work?
00:33Well, for most Taiwanese exports, it's fairly simple.
00:3720% across the board, at least for those exports being levied under a law known as IEPA.
00:43Now, that law gives the U.S. president the authority to change economic policies towards foreign countries in a declared emergency.
00:50As a reminder, when the Trump administration came out with their so-called Liberation Day tariffs back in April,
00:55Taiwan was actually slated to receive a 32% tariff.
00:59So this 20% is a reduction of sorts.
01:02But at the same time, it's still higher than some of Taiwan's neighboring countries receive, like Japan and South Korea, which are being taxed at 15%.
01:10China, on the other hand, remains one of the highest levied countries while it continues negotiations with the U.S.
01:17Now, this executive order came out after markets closed on Thursday in the U.S.
01:22But here in Asia, markets across the region were down today, including Taiwan's TaiX, which closed just below about half a percent.
01:33Now, President Lai Qingda and several other Taiwanese officials held a press conference today about the tariff announcement.
01:39And here's a little bit of what they had to say.
01:41Now, Taiwan's cabinet yesterday said that they had reached a consensus with the U.S.
02:06on the technical details of a trade deal, but they did not release the details of that to the public.
02:13And Chris, why didn't they provide more information?
02:20Well, that's what a lot of people were wondering.
02:22At the time, they said that they were preparing to have a joint statement with the U.S.
02:27about the progress of the talks.
02:29But President Lai now says, as you saw in that clip, that it all has to do with these Section 232 deals.
02:35Now, most of Taiwan's most valuable exports, like semiconductors, smartphones, computers, until now have actually been exempt from tariffs.
02:44But those same products, including semiconductors, could receive special tariffs under this Section 232 law.
02:51Now, that is pending an investigation from the U.S. Commerce Department.
02:55And that investigation is expected to wrap up as soon as two weeks from now.
02:59And we don't know how high those tariffs might be.
03:02But Lai now says that the 20% tariff and the Section 230 tariffs both need to be made public before Taiwan can release the details of its trade deal with the U.S.
03:14Now, there's so much about this trade deal that we still don't know.
03:18But I did speak to one local economist today and asked him what he thinks are the key points for Taiwan as negotiations move forward.
03:26The first one is, we have to liberalize our market.
03:30As a result, some domestic-oriented industry in Taiwan will be affected.
03:34So this is...
03:35...
03:44...
Comments