Decryption – Despite its efforts to coax Washington, the island has been inflicted 20 % customs duties on its exports.
“Twenty percent customs duties: since the start, this has never been our goal”, Strake the Taiwanese president Lai Ching-te during a press conference this Friday 1is august. The same morning, the country woke up by learning that the United States imposed 20 % of customs tariffs on its exported products. If the president hammers that this figure is provisional and that the negotiations will continue, the disappointment is great: neighboring countries – Japan and South Korea – have concluded a trade agreement for a rate of 15 %, which suggested the same fate for Taiwan. But beyond the reciprocal rates, the negotiations underway with the United States also relates to one point which could have an even more serious impact: the possibility of customs duties on the semiconductor industry, hitherto spared by the trade war.
Donald Trump launched in April a national security survey on semiconductors …