The head of Taiwan's central bank, Yang Chin-long, has fielded questions from concerned lawmakers about potential aggressive tariffs from U.S. President-elect Donald Trump. Yang said he's confident that the U.S. needs Taiwan's high-tech products, but he also urged close monitoring of Trump's economic policies as they take shape.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Taiwan is bracing for potential tariffs from U.S. President-elect Donald Trump.
00:05The head of the central bank is warning that if Trump falls through on his campaign promises,
00:10trade conflicts could escalate around the world.
00:12Joyce Tseung joins us now from our newsroom.
00:15Joyce, how is Taiwan preparing?
00:21The head of Taiwan's central bank is cautious but confident that Taiwan's economy will be
00:26able to stay the course and remain strong even as Donald Trump enters the White House
00:31for a second term.
00:33Yang Jinglong fielded questions from concerned lawmakers about the aggressive tariffs Trump
00:38vowed to impose while he was campaigning that includes 60 percent tariffs on Chinese goods
00:44and even a possible 10 percent universal tariff on all U.S. imports.
00:51Trump even directly targeted Taiwan, falsely accusing it of stealing the U.S. semiconductor
00:56industry.
00:57Last year, Taiwan posted over 50 billion U.S. dollars in trade surplus with the U.S. as
01:04the major supplier of expensive advanced chips for tech giants like NVIDIA and Apple.
01:11Lawmakers asked Yang whether this would make Taiwan a target of Trump's sanctions.
01:16Yang says that he's confident that the U.S. needs the country's technology.
01:20Taiwan's economy has been growing in recent years off the back of booming applications
01:49of artificial intelligence, which runs on the cutting-edge chips that Taiwan dominates
01:54in.
01:55Looking back at Trump's first term, Yang also observed that Taiwan benefited from the U.S.-China
02:02trade war that Trump started but says that it would be wrong to assume that a second
02:06term would be more of the same.
02:09Yang says that Taiwan must closely monitor and adapt to Trump's policies, which are still
02:15in the works.