DRIVING TAIWAN INTO CHINA’S EMBRACE?
If Mr Trump’s tariffs have been to enter impact, they may drive Taiwan right into a tighter embrace with China.
Taiwan can little afford a 32 per cent tariff, and China is aware of that. Chinese language leaders may provide extra entry to the China market in return for key concessions, maybe stopping TSMC’s development in Arizona or agreeing to switch key applied sciences that can not be obtained straight from the USA or Europe.
Probably, the tariffs on Taiwanese merchandise, or at the least on TSMC, is not going to be carried out, and Mr Trump will discover some strategy to declare victory.
As threatened, the Trump tariffs are a lose-lose-lose proposition for China, Taiwan and the US. If, as anticipated, the tariffs are reconfigured, the American economic system will nonetheless endure, however Taiwan may change into that rather more safe.
Anne Stevenson-Yang is co-founder of J Capital Analysis USA LLC, a stock-research firm, and writer of Wild Journey: A Quick Historical past of the Opening and Closing of the Chinese language Financial system, printed in 2024.
