Yes, almost nobody in Taiwan cares. (since you do not live in Taiwan your not aware of it, and Taiwanese prefer local pork) Are working for the pork company or lobby?
Also from Japanese media reason Taiwan not in the trade agreement is because of China and the USA will have trade agreement with Taiwan on important items like computer parts and NOT pork, sample news : https://www.jiji.com/jc/article?k=2022052200382&g=int)
the initiative covers 11 key areas, including “trade facilitation, regulatory practices, agriculture, anti-corruption, supporting small and medium sized enterprises, digital trade, labor rights, the environment, standards, state owned enterprises and non-market practices and policies,” Deng said.
Participants in the IPEF:
Australia, Brunei, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, alongside the US.
Cut their chips while we still can and force some damn respect rather than cow tow and give them factories with zero benefit to here. Chips are probably our only bargaining chip that foreign nations care about. Democracy and all that doesnt seem to count for anything in real life
The first-order benefits of a US-Taiwan FTA are small for Taiwan (even smaller for the US). The real benefit comes in giving regional countries the guts to sign one with Taiwan after seeing the US do it.
Based on the news report, the reason Taiwan was excluded from IPEF was because member countries were still scared of China, EVEN though the US was spearheading it. I thought it was because the US was still pissed.
Although I have heard that Japan will sign one with Taiwan after the US does.
I have no doubt other countries are chomping at the bit to use Taiwan as much as possible. Where I am reserved is said countries putting down ink in any official way to support Taiwan. Taiwan has been used for decades without any respect on a national front. I doubt if this time would be any different. aside from taiwan losing perhaps its last meaningful bargaining chip. Lord knows morals, ethics and leadership mean nothing, but economics do. I worry about selling out the last thing the world actually needs from taiwan without ANY international benefit as far as the obvious goes. My guess is they win, we lose. I will wager a beer on it and we can meet in 20 years to see that it is probably true.
Official ties or no chips for you! Soon even this wont work and we will have zero hope.