BARGAINING CHIPS:A DPP lawmaker said Taiwan has leverage as it is the US’ 10th-largest trading partner and it is one of the largest importers of US agricultural products
By Chris Wang / Staff Reporter
Taiwan should be able to explore an alternate solution to the dispute over US beef dispute by adopting a different approach to negotiations and using the “art of give and take,” lawmakers said yesterday.
Judging from Taiwan’s total trade volume with the US and the small percentage US beef imports make up in bilateral trade, the administration of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) should not take everything the US throws at it, because it has substantial bargaining chips, they said.
US pressure on the issue has been “out of proportion,” since Taiwan’s annual US beef imports are valued at about US$193 million, which accounts for just 0.3 percent of total annual bilateral trade of US$60 billion, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lee Ying-yuan (李應元) said during a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee.
Government agencies, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Economic Affairs, have said that the lack of progress on the dispute over US beef has been a “major roadblock” to the stalled Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) negotiations in the past four years.
However, Lee said Taiwan has leverage in the dispute as it is the US’ 10th-largest trading partner and it has always been one of the largest importers of US agricultural products, such as corn and soya beans.
That is why Taiwan should be able to at least bargain with the US, if not take a tougher stance, in bilateral talks on the beef issue, he added.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Ting Shou-chung (丁守中) observed that the “China factor” could be the more critical reason behind the stalled TIFA talks, rather than the beef dispute.
“The US needs Beijing’s cooperation in international affairs and its economy is now more closely intertwined with China’s, which was why it has been cautious with its interaction with Taiwan on issues such as the TIFA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership [TPP],” Ting told the committee.
Ting also suggested that Taiwan should adopt the same stance as the EU on beef imports. The EU has demanded that all beef imports to be free of ractopamine.
“If the US could do that for EU, it should be able to do that for us,” he said.
In response, Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-hsiang (施顏祥) denied the breakdown of the TIFA talks was due to China and said the US had taken the EU’s restriction, which it considers unfair, to the WTO and had won its case.
“One of the most important facts in the dispute is that beef farmers and exporters in the US have a strong influence in US politics, regardless of how much the bilateral trade volume is,” Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs Lin Sheng-chung (林聖忠). Said. “The beef issue is obviously one of the most serious US concerns in terms of US-Taiwan trade relations.”
DPP Legislator Lin Tai-hua (林岱樺) cited this year’s US Trade Agenda, which the Office of the US Trade Representative submitted to Congress on March 1, as saying that both beef and pork are on the US’ agenda this year.
Lin warned that the US could keep pressing Taiwan on pork imports and eventually force Taipei to lift the ban on ractopamine in imported pork.
The US also listed several agricultural products, including fresh fruit and vegetables, grain and oilseeds, on its annual trade agenda with Taiwan, she said.
“We are more than likely face an even more difficult year, even if the beef dispute is resolved,” Lin told the committee.