Taiwanese authorities prepare to allocate $2.7 billion to support companies affected by Trump’s tariff policy

Initially, Donald Trump’s increase in import duties in the United States had several goals. Among them, an important one was to eliminate the imbalance in the prices of American and imported products, which allegedly arose due to subsidies for foreign companies by governments of other countries. Taiwan this week announced the need to allocate these very subsidies.

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Since President Donald Trump has threatened countries that trade intensively with the United States with serious retaliatory measures if they raise their import tariffs on American products, not all of the United States’ foreign trade partners have decided to take the corresponding step. According to a Bloomberg publication, the Taiwanese authorities are currently planning to urgently allocate about $2.7 billion from the island’s budget to subsidize the activities of companies that will suffer the most from American import duties.

Of this amount, about $2.15 billion will go to the industrial sector, as Taiwan is a major exporter of electronics, metal products and automobile components. The remaining $550 million will go to the agricultural sector, which could suffer amid a decline in fish and tea exports to the United States. The rise in prices of Taiwanese products due to American tariffs will make them uncompetitive, and therefore exporters will obviously suffer.

As is known, pure semiconductor products are currently exempt from increased duties in the US, but their introduction is only a matter of time, as the country’s Minister of Commerce, who is familiar with the president’s intentions, recently made it clear. All other products of Taiwanese manufacture supplied to the US will be subject not only to the basic duty of 10% for all imported goods, but also to an additional “retaliatory” tariff of 32%. Experts assumed that Taiwanese goods would be taxed in the US at lower rates, and the current level would force the island’s manufacturers to more actively develop their business in the US, and the Taiwanese authorities would try to increase the volume of purchases of American products in order to negotiate concessions in tariff policy.