Bangkok: The Prime Minister held a war room meeting to deal with the US import tax, setting the framework for negotiations to "reduce customs duties - open new markets," indicating that it must be done carefully for the benefit of the country because many countries missed out after negotiations failed to yield results, stating that the negotiation guidelines will be concluded on April 8.
According to Thai News Agency, Mr. Jirayu Huangsap, advisor to the Prime Minister, revealed that last night, which was approximately 9:00 a.m. in the United States, the Prime Minister met with the War Room team to monitor the US tax situation in order to follow up and use it as comparative information for each country to see how to proceed in order for Thailand to gain the most benefit from this international trade.
It can be seen that the anxiety is very serious in the United States itself. The Dow Jones Industrial Average of the New York Stock Exchange closed sharply down for the second consecutive day on Friday with increasing concerns about the escalating global trade war, dragging the stock market down the most since the outbreak of COVID-19. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq Index has entered a bear market. The continuous and prolonged decline in the stock market shows that Thailand must firmly rely on the important information of the country in all dimensions of negotiations with the United States.
Mr. Chirayu said that the Thai government's working group in negotiations with the United States must be careful and determine the most appropriate time to protect Thailand's interests as best as possible.
The war room agreed that 'Too late is not good, too early is risky,' so it is necessary to be careful. It can be seen that other countries that started negotiations before President Trump announced the tariff increase did not help their situation any better. Instead, they were hit with tariffs that were higher than expected. Therefore, rushing did not yield worthwhile results. On the contrary, it turned out that America was announced as 'giving away freebies' before the tariff increase.
Mr. Jirayu said that the war room saw that Thailand's stance after the government set up the committee since the beginning of January until now has shown the most appropriate information, which is a negotiation planning technique that Thailand must receive the most benefit. Today, President Trump has clearly announced that the committee sees that we have the right time and information from the operations for the past 3 months, and are ready to negotiate officially.
The Thai government's negotiation framework is multi-dimensional, including tariff reductions, opening new markets, and ways to adjust economic relations so that Thailand becomes a partner with US farmers, in which we will buy more US agricultural products to use as raw materials, since Thailand is a producer of quality food that is exported to the world market.
Export business operators have provided information along with the work of this committee since the beginning of the year to continuously prepare for the situation. They are confident that the monitoring, inspection, and collection of important information to be clear information for decision-making to solve this problem will be able to work carefully because analysts from many countries have written the same analysis that some countries panicked and negotiated before the announcement by submitting various proposals in vain.
Mr. Jirayu added that the War Room meeting closely monitored the situation and stated that the Thai government had been systematically assessing the situation continuously. This Tuesday at 1:00 p.m. will be the time to summarize the results and the framework of the negotiations in order to make Thailand and the Thai export business sector gain the most benefit in solving this problem.