DRIVING TAIWAN INTO CHINA’S EMBRACE?
If Mr Trump’s tariffs were to go into effect, they could drive Taiwan into a tighter embrace with China.
Taiwan can little afford a 32 per cent tariff, and China knows that. Chinese leaders could offer more access to the China market in return for key concessions, perhaps stopping TSMC’s construction in Arizona or agreeing to transfer key technologies that cannot be obtained directly from the United States or Europe.
Most likely, the tariffs on Taiwanese products, or at least on TSMC, will not be implemented, and Mr Trump will find some way to declare victory.
As threatened, the Trump tariffs are a lose-lose-lose proposition for China, Taiwan and the US. If, as expected, the tariffs are reconfigured, the American economy will still suffer, but Taiwan could become that much more secure.
Anne Stevenson-Yang is co-founder of J Capital Research USA LLC, a stock-research company, and author of Wild Ride: A Short History of the Opening and Closing of the Chinese Economy, published in 2024.
