MANILA wants to negotiate an exemption from steep semiconductor tariffs that have been flagged by US President Donald Trump.
“We’re working on trying to get several items exempted,” Frederick Go, special assistant to the president for investment and economic affairs, told reporters on Monday.
Trump last week said that he was planning to impost a 100-percent tariff on semiconductor imports, with exemptions on companies that make a commitment to invest and build in the United States.
Go said the matter was still “a gray space” and “we are still seeking clarification from the US side.”
“And, of course, we are lobbying that our semiconductor exports likewise be exempted if there is such,” he said.
Go added, however, that “I think the communication is not as fast as we would like it to be.”
He said the government was planning to leverage the assembly, testing and packaging (ATP) work being done here when seeking for an exemption.
“We’re hoping that they view the work we do here in the Philippines, which is ATP, to be part of the process that the United States may not really want to do. We have expressed this, that this ATP is a process that the semiconductor companies would probably want to outsource,” he said.
“The very reason that this was outsourced means that this is probably something they are not keen on doing. So we’re hoping that it will be viewed this way.”
The Semiconductor and Electronics Industries in the Philippines, Inc. (Seipi) has said the proposed 100-percent tariff on semiconductors would be “devastating” to local exporters.
As for a 40-percent transshipment tariff announced by the US as a means of curbing Chinese exports, Go said “we are not covered by that because we are not identified as a country who does transshipments.”
“[T]he transshipment category applies to countries that the United States believes engages in transshipments from a third country,” he added.
Under an executive order issued by Trump, goods imported into the US will face an additional 40-percent tariff, plus penalties and any applicable country-of-origin duties, if US Customs and Border Protection determines they have been “transshipped.”
