TAIPEI, April 6 (Reuters) - Taiwan's President Lai

Ching-te said on Sunday that Taiwan will not impose reciprocal

trade tariffs against the United States, but will remove trade

barriers, and that Taiwanese companies will gradually increase

their investments in the country.

President Donald Trump announced across-the-board import

tariffs on Wednesday, with much higher duties for dozens of

trading partners, including Taiwan, which runs a large trade

surplus with the U.S. and faces a 32% duty on its products.

The U.S. tariffs, however, do not apply to semiconductors, a

major Taiwanese export.

Meeting executives from small and medium-sized companies at

his residence, Lai said given Taiwan's dependence on trade the

economy would inevitably have a hard time dealing with the

tariffs, but that he thought the impact could be minimised.

"In the face of the U.S. 'reciprocal tariffs', Taiwan has no

plans to take tariff retaliation, and there will be no change in

the investment commitments of enterprises to the United States

as long as they are in the national interest," he said, in

comments provided by his office.

Taiwan's TSMC, the world's largest contract

chipmaker, last month announced an additional $100 billion

investment in the U.S.

"In the future, in addition to TSMC's increased investment,

other industries, such as electronics, information and

communications, petrochemicals, and natural gas will be able to

increase investment in the U.S. and deepen Taiwan-U.S.

industrial cooperation," Lai said.

Non-tariff trade barriers are an indicator for the U.S. to

assess the fairness of trade, and Taiwan will proactively

resolve non-tariff trade barriers that have existed for many

years to make trade negotiations with the U.S. smoother, he

added.