Analysis: What the U.S.-China Tariff Reset Means for Taiwan Trade Talks

TaiwanPlus News

U.S.-China tariffs have returned to their early-April baseline, with China now under the same 90-day tariff reprieve as other countries. TaiwanPlus spoke to James Ransdell, a U.S. trade lawyer and partner at Cassidy Levy Kent, about whether the U.S. and China had passed "peak tariffs" and what the developments might mean for Taiwan's own negotiations with the U.S.

Transcript

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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