Tariffs Land on Taiwan Amid Tension With Washington
Days earlier, Taiwan's president, Lai Ching-te, called off plans to stop in New York and Dallas during an upcoming trip to Latin America at the urging of the Trump administration. Taiwan's leaders typically use such transit stops as a way to show its ties with the United States, invariably drawing protest from China, which claims Taiwan is part of its territory.
Now, Taiwanese officials acknowledged that weeks of talks by their negotiators in Washington had not led to a trade deal like the ones struck by Japan and South Korea. And a bigger threat still loomed, as the United States weighed the possibility of putting damaging tariffs on semiconductors, Taiwan's main exports.
These possible tariffs on chips were part of the continuing talks between the two sides, Taiwan's cabinet, the Executive Yuan, said in a statement on Friday.
'Both sides have expressed their commitment to continue negotiations,' the statement said.
On Friday, Taiwanese officials played down the new tariff rate, saying the two sides had simply not yet concluded the talks. Negotiators from Taiwan have spent the past two weeks in Washington trying to hammer out a deal, their fourth such visit since Mr. Trump first announced so-called reciprocal tariffs in April.
The United States has been the largest buyer of Taiwan's exports since late last year, according to government data. But for most of the past three decades, it was China.
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