Bipartisan Letter Says It's Time to Negotiate a Taiwan FTA
A day before high-level trade talks with Taiwan (see 2106300009), Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Mark Warner, D-Va., led a letter asking U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai to reconvene the Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) meetings, and requested that she then “take steps to begin laying the groundwork for negotiation of a free trade agreement (FTA), or other preliminary agreement, with Taiwan.” Forty other senators signed.
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In the June 30 letter, they wrote: “In August 2020, Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen announced her intention to remove, and later removed, what had been a major obstacle to the pursuit of a FTA: import restrictions on certain U.S. beef and pork products. It is now time for the United States to reciprocate and begin negotiations. It is clear that the United States stands to gain much in doing so.
“Taiwan is the tenth largest trading partner of the United States -- surpassing more populous nations such as India, France, and Italy -- and the eighth largest market for American agricultural products. It embraces high standards of labor rights and environmental protection. We can all be confident that an agreement negotiated with Taiwan could serve as a model for what a high-standard FTA should look like.”
They also said that increasing economic ties with Taiwan is of strategic value. “Maintaining U.S. economic influence in the region and reducing Taiwan’s dependence on China is essential to ensuring that the region remains free and open,” they wrote.