TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The Trump administration on Friday listed smartphones, computers, semiconductors, and other electronics as exempt from some of the tariffs originally announced.

A top administration official said the exemptions were intended to preserve US supplies of semiconductors, the New York Times reported.

Paul Ashworth, the chief North America economist for Capital Economics, said the decision “represents a partial de-escalation of President Trump’s trade war with China.” Should the originally announced retaliatory tariffs come back, the exemption would cover 64% of US imports from Taiwan, 44% of imports from Malaysia, and about a third of imports from Vietnam and Thailand, NYT cited Ashworth as saying.

Modems, routers, and flash drives were also included in the list of exempted goods. 

NYT pointed out that the move is only a temporary and partial fix, as Trump is launching a forthcoming “security-related trade investigation into semiconductors.” Taiwan produces about 60% of the world’s chips and 90% of the most advanced semiconductors.

The US has lowered the tariff on Taiwan from 32% to 10% amid a 90-day pause due to Taiwan's submission of an industrial support plan to the US government.

Last week, Taiwan Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said the country would “discuss Taiwan-US economic and trade cooperation in a more detailed and in-depth manner" during the pause. He added, “We hope to take advantage of the huge US market—their excellent technology, capital, and talent—to form a Taiwan-US coalition: a joint fleet approach.”

Taiwan could buy an extra NT$6.58 trillion (US$200 billion) from the US over the next decade to reduce the bilateral trade deficit, Economics Minister Kuo Jyh-huei (郭智輝) said on Thursday.

President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) has pledged to engage with the US to resolve any trade issues. Taiwan is included in the list of countries for the first batch of negotiations.