By Sherry Qin

Taiwan wants to start "serious negotiations" with the U.S. over what it said were "highly unreasonable" tariffs announced by the Trump administration, a government official said.

Referring to the hefty 32% tariff on Taiwanese imports that the U.S. president announced on Wednesday, Taiwan cabinet spokesperson Lee Hui-chih said the duty doesn't reflect the economic and trade relationship between the two economies.

Taipei will initiate formal negotiations with Washington on the matter, she said in a statement Thursday.

News of the reciprocal tariffs on around 60 countries rattled markets across Asia, raising concerns about a widening trade conflict that could hurt growth, particularly in export-oriented economies like Taiwan.

Taiwanese markets were spared as they were closed for a holiday, and investors could take some cheer from the fact that the "Liberation Day" tariff plan didn't extend to semiconductors, which make up a significant portion of Taiwan's exports.

Trump has been openly critical of Taiwan's dominance in advanced chip manufacturing, threatening tariffs on chip imports from Taiwan throughout his election campaign.

In a speech on Wednesday announcing the latest slate of tariffs, Trump brought up the issue again.

"Taiwan, they took all of our computer chips and semiconductors," Trump said during the speech. "We used to be the king, right...now we have almost none of it."

In Thursday's cabinet statement, Taipei attributed Taiwan's rising trade surplus with the U.S. to American customers' surging demand for semiconductors and related products, turbo-charged by enthusiasm around artificial intelligence. It also cited the impact of previous U.S. tariffs and technology restrictions on China under Trump's first term.

"An increase in U.S. demand for Taiwan's information and communications products reflects the huge contribution of Taiwan to the U.S. economy and national security," the cabinet said.

The island is home to the world's largest contract chip maker, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., which counts U.S. tech giants Nvidia and Apple as its major clients. The chips it produces are critical for powering everything from the latest AI systems to smartphones.

TSMC last month announced plans to invest at least $100 billion more in chip-manufacturing plants in the U.S. over the coming years. That would be on top of the $65 billion investment commitment the company made during the Biden administration.

Trump said the tariffs played a part in the recent investment decision.

"They [TSMC] don't want to pay the tariffs and the way they're not paying it is to build the plant here," Trump said.

Write to Sherry Qin at sherry.qin@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 03, 2025 05:04 ET (09:04 GMT)

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