Thread by @WilliamYang120

"The United States and #Taiwan agreed the first stage of a bilateral trade initiative on Thursday, less than a year after negotiations began, in a move that demonstrated the increasingly close relationship between Washington and Taipei." edition.cnn.com/2023/05/18/asi…

"It covers areas including trade facilitation, regulatory practices, services domestic regulation, anti-corruption and supporting small and medium sized enterprises, a statement from the US Trade Representative (USTR) Office said."

“This accomplishment represents an important step forward in strengthening the US-Taiwan economic relationship,” US Trade Representative Katherine Tai said in the statement.

“It demonstrates how we can work together and advance mutual trade priorities on behalf of our people. We look forward to continuing these negotiations and finalizing a robust and high-standard trade agreement that tackles pressing 21st century economic challenges,” she added.

The US Trade Representative Office said discussions will soon begin to finalize the remaining seven areas of the deal: agriculture, labor, environment, standards, state-owned enterprises, digital trade, and non-market policies and practices.

Experts say the move is particularly significant for Taiwan because it is the island democracy’s first official trade agreement since it was excluded from the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) launched by Biden last year.

Kristy Hsu, a director of the Taiwan ASEAN Studies Center at the Chung-Hua Institution of Economic Research, said the US-Taiwan agreement would “create a more efficient and transparent business environment for companies from the two sides.”

“It proves to the international world that if Taiwan is able to engage in such a high-quality initiative with the US, that means our commitment to transparency and trade facilitation should have no question,” she said.