Analysis: U.S. Tariff Court Ruling Means Taiwan Semiconductors Still in Danger

TaiwanPlus News

A U.S. court has blocked some of the Trump tariffs on global imports, including duties on most Taiwanese goods. However, separate semiconductor tariffs remain a potential threat to Taiwan’s key tech industry. TaiwanPlus spoke to trade lawyer James Ransdell about what the court's decision means for Taiwan and global businesses.

Transcript

00:00Okay, James, let's start with the basics. Now that this court order has been issued,

00:04which tariffs are blocked and which are still in effect?

00:07That is a great question because there are many tariffs that are flying around nowadays.

00:12So this court order applies specifically to one batch of tariffs. They're commonly referred to

00:19as reciprocal tariffs. And then there's another sort of related group that are commonly referred

00:25to as the fentanyl tariffs or what the court called the trafficking tariffs. So the first of

00:32these, the reciprocal ones are familiar to Taiwan. They're the ones that are sort of applicable

00:37globally. They were the ones that are originally set at 32% for Taiwan and then dialed back to 10%

00:45for a pause period. Right. These are the tariffs that were announced on so-called liberation day

00:49when Trump came out with the sign with the list of countries and their tariff amount, right?

00:53Exactly. Right. So those, those are the ones that everyone around the world is interested in.

00:58The other ones are a more narrow subset. They affect specifically the People's Republic of China,

01:04Canada, and Mexico. And they were put in place actually very early in the Trump administration,

01:10even before quote unquote liberation day. But the reason they're affected as well is because

01:17both of those were implemented under the same statutory authority, which is what the CIT

01:23the U.S. Court of International Trade has looked at and said, it doesn't allow you to do this.

01:29Let's talk about Taiwan specifically. You mentioned that the 32% tariff on Taiwanese imports has been

01:34blocked. The 10% tariff that applied to every country in the world, including Taiwan, has been

01:39blocked. But what about the proposed semiconductor tariffs? These obviously would affect Taiwan's biggest

01:45industry. It sounds like Taiwan could still be facing those.

01:48Yes, that is absolutely correct. That investigation is under Section 232. That is remains pending. And

01:57when the investigation was started off, you had Trump administration officials projecting a very

02:03aggressive timeline for, for putting those into effect. So those may be coming sooner rather than

02:10later. And they are very much still in play.

02:11The Trump administration says that they will appeal this ruling. Will the tariffs be in effect

02:18during that appeal process?

02:19In practical terms, the court said, okay, you've exceeded your statutory authority. These tariffs

02:25are vacated. They're null and void. But they also have to recognize practical reality. And so they've

02:32provided the government with 10 calendar days. The government has already filed its appeal. That appeal is

02:38already docketed, which suggests to those of us in the trade bar that they are working furiously

02:44right now to prepare their emergency motion to stay the effect of the Court of International

02:49Trade's order. So it may or may not see sort of practical implementation. But if it does, it will probably

02:57be a few days away.

02:58So with so much still up in the air, it sounds like the kind of certainty that businesses have been

03:03hoping for in terms of planning around tariffs over the long term isn't coming in the near future.

03:09Unfortunately, that's pretty much where things stand.

Category

Transcript

Recommended