TAIPEI, April 5 (Reuters) - Taiwan President Lai

Ching-te met tech executives on Saturday to discuss how to

respond to new U.S. tariffs, promising to ensure Taiwan's global

competitiveness and safeguard the island's interests.

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 United States and is facing a 32% duty on its

products.

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

major Taiwanese export.

Lai met the executives at his official residence to discuss

the response to "the global economic and trade challenges

brought about by the reciprocal tariff policy", his spokesperson

Karen Kuo said in a statement.

She did not say which companies were present, only that

there were several representatives from the information and

communications technology, or ICT, industry.

Lai "hopes to give industry the greatest support, stabilise

the economic situation, ensure Taiwan's industry's global

competitiveness, and safeguard our country's national interests

and the continued steady progress of our economy", Kuo said.

Taiwan is home to TSMC, the world's largest

contract chipmaker and an important supplier to companies

including Apple ( AAPL ) and Nvidia ( NVDA ).

TSMC did not immediately respond to a request for comment on

whether it attended the meeting. TSMC is in its quiet period

ahead of first quarter earnings announcement on April 17.

On Friday, Taiwan's government unveiled T$88 billion ($2.67

billion) in financial help for companies and industries to deal

with the impact of the U.S. tariffs.

Taiwan, which says the tariffs are unreasonable, has said it

will discuss them with the United States and has not announced

any retaliatory tariffs.