The pursuit of a trade deal with the United States and other strategic considerations are shaping Taiwan’s moves to increase its purchases of American agricultural products.
Agriculture accounts for a small share of the US$158.6 billion in U.S.-Taiwan bilateral goods trade, but it is increasingly playing an outsize role in the overall commercial relationship between the two economies.
Taiwan is stepping up its purchase of American agricultural products as it eyes reaching a trade deal with Washington that will reduce the 20% tariff rate imposed by the second Donald Trump administration on most Taiwanese imports. While Taiwan’s technology hardware exporters —which drive economic growth and are benefiting from huge U.S. demand for advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chips — are largely exempt from the levies, traditional manufacturers with thin balance sheets are directly in the tariff firing line.
Delegations of Taiwan agriculture buyers visited the United States in September and announced billions of dollars in procurement, including agreements or letters of intent in Arkansas (corn and soybeans), Florida (beef), Idaho (wheat), Indiana (corn and soybeans), Montana (wheat), Ohio (corn, soybeans, and wheat), South Dakota (wheat), and Texas (beef).
On the one hand, “Taiwan regularly makes such purchases from the U.S. and is a valued buyer for the U.S. supply chain,” says Ross Darrell Feingold, a Taipei-based lawyer and political risk consultant. The U.S. is Taiwan’s top source of agricultural imports, accounting for about 25% of all farm products the island democracy imports.
On the other, “commitments to purchase larger quantities or agreements that span over a longer time period than similar previous agreements were done to placate the Trump administration, as these buying delegations visited the U.S. shortly after multiple rounds of negotiations between the U.S. and Taiwan on a broader bilateral trade agreement,” Feingold says.
However, Feingold argues that even these substantial agricultural purchases would not, absent further concessions to the Trump administration, be sufficient to conclude bilateral negotiations.
Taiwan usually sends a biennail “agricultural trade goodwill mission” to the United States. Typically, that mission makes annual purchase commitments of US$1.9 billion, but this year the amount rose to US$2.5 billion, Minister of Agriculture Chen Junne-jih said in September at a signing ceremony in Washington. Overall, the Taiwanese agricultural trade mission signed three letters of intent with U.S. agricultural industry associations to purchase more than US$10 billion of American farm products over the next four years.
At the ceremony, Representative to the U.S. Alexander Yui did not mention trade negotiations but did highlight another strategic consideration for Taipei. “We need to have a strategic supply for rainy days because of what’s happening in the Taiwan Strait,” he said. “Buying from a friend makes all the sense in the world — not only food, but also energy and other defense-related equipment.”
A 2023 U.S. Army War College report by Gustavo F. Ferreira and Jamie A. Critelli found that except for rice, Taiwan’s food stockpiles would last approximately six months in the event of a cross-Strait war. “While such stock levels may sustain Taiwan in a rapidly evolving kinetic conflict with China, they could fall short during a prolonged naval blockade,” the report noted.
Ferreira and Critelli assess that improving Taiwan’s food supply system resilience will require large investments in storage capacity. “These investments could yield important returns beyond readiness for a military conflict and prepare Taiwan for other shocks, such as natural disasters, pandemics, or global food price spikes,” they said.
More is more
In late September, following the visit of the Taiwanese agricultural trade delegation to the United States, an American agribusiness trade mission organized by the Department of Agriculture traveled to Taiwan. Focused on expanding market access and boosting U.S. agricultural exports, the delegation included 39 agribusinesses and trade organizations as well as representatives from three state departments of agriculture.
“On a per capita basis, Taiwan already punches above its weight in purchasing high-quality American agriculture,” Under Secretary for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs Luke Lindberg said in a news release. “We aim to lock in recent commitments that Taiwan made to American producers and win new sales that will support family farms back home.”
The news release emphasized that “Taiwan presents a prime opportunity for American producers” given its advanced consumer market, steady economic growth, innovative consumer technologies, and “a desire to experience new food and agricultural products.”
In another positive development for U.S.-Taiwan agricultural trade, the U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC), the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF), and the Dairy Association of Taiwan (DAT) signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to strengthen the relationship between the two countries’ dairy sectors. Krysta Harden, president and CEO of USDEC, said in a statement that the MOU “is a significant step toward expanding the presence of U.S. dairy in Taiwan, one of the most dynamic markets in Asia.”
At the same time, boosting U.S. agricultural sales to Taiwan may not be straightforward. Lawyer and political risk consultant Feingold notes that sudden impositions of restrictions by Taiwan on imports from locations where animal disease outbreaks occur can frustrate both producers and exporters on the U.S. side and importers on the Taiwan side.
In the 2000s and 2010s, Taiwan banned the import of certain types of American beef several times due to concerns about mad cow disease. It also barred the importation of pork containing the growth-enhancing hormone ractopamine. In January 2021, former President Tsai Ing-wen lifted the import ban on U.S. meat products.
Still, some aspects of Taiwan’s regulations for agricultural imports remain challenging. Feingold says that Taiwan’s documentation requirements for agriculture imports can be difficult to satisfy and often require the resources of a larger exporter who has an in-house and experienced staff who can produce all the relevant documentation required by Taiwan government agencies.
For its part, the American Chamber of Commerce in Taiwan’s Agro Chemical Committee in the 2025 Taiwan White Paper recommends that the Taiwanese authorities strengthen regulatory management of agriculture, streamline the registration process for new pesticides, and speed up the revision of the Agro-pesticides Management Act. Further, the position paper strongly urges the establishment of a practical regulatory framework that adopts a product-based approach for gene-edited products.
“Implementing such a framework would foster innovation in plant breeding and enhance food security by enabling the development of more resilient and sustainable agricultural solutions,” AmCham says.
