KUALA LUMPUR: It must be made clear that Malaysia is not taking advantage of the United States when it comes to bilateral trade, said Datuk Seri Ong Ka Chuan (pic).

The International Trade and Industry Minister II was commenting on US President Donald Trump’s list of “trade cheats”, in which Malaysia is among the countries claimed to be responsible for the US’ nearly US$50bil (RM221bil) trade deficit.

The others listed are Japan, Germany, Mexico, Ireland, Vietnam, Italy, South Korea, China, India, Thailand, France, Switzerland, Taiwan, Indonesia and Canada.

Ong said the bulk of Malaysia’s exports to the US are electronics manufactured by American companies here.

“Perhaps Trump does not know that there is a huge presence of American manufacturers in Malaysia, such as Intel and Western Digital, due to the low production cost here.

“The electronics they make here are brought back to America as semi-finished products to be assembled into computers and handphones,” Ong said.

He was speaking to reporters after officiating the Xianning-Kuala Lumpur tea promotion and tea culture exchange conference here.

Quoting February trade figures, he said 53% of exports to the US are electronics produced by companies from there, while the rest were made up of things like furniture and chemical products.

He added that taxes are imposed on goods entering the US as the countries do not have a free trade agreement, and therefore exports to the US have always been low.-thestar