Overview

The United States-Taiwan Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) is the key mechanism for trade dialogue between the United States and Taiwan authorities and covers a broad range of trade and investment issues important to U.S. and Taiwan stakeholders. The TIFA Council on Trade and Investment is chaired by the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) and the Taipei Council for U.S. Affairs (TCUSA), with senior advisors from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs serving as chief negotiators. Many of the issues discussed below were raised at the most recent TIFA Council meeting in 2021 and in follow-up meetings. 

In addition to TIFA, the United States and Taiwan intend to use the U.S.-Taiwan Initiative on 21st-Century Trade and their on-going engagement with stakeholders to advance and deepen the important U.S.-Taiwan economic and trade relationship, to promote shared values, and to address shared challenges and opportunities in eleven priority trade areas. On June 1, 2023, the United States and Taiwan under the auspices of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States (TECRO) signed the first agreement under the initiative, covering customs administration and trade facilitation, good regulatory practices, services domestic regulation, anticorruption, and small and medium-sized enterprises. Future negotiations will cover the following additional trade areas as set forth in the initiative’s negotiating mandate: agriculture, harnessing the benefits of digital trade, promoting worker-centric trade, supporting the environment and climate action, standards, state-owned enterprises, and non-market policies and practices. 

Furthermore, in 2021, the U.S. Department of Commerce and the Taiwan Ministry of Economic Affairs jointly announced the U.S.-Taiwan Technology Trade and Investment Collaboration (TTIC), as part of an effort to collaborate to develop commercial programs and explore actions to strengthen critical supply chains.