On May 14th, the US announced new punitive tariffs on US$ 300 billion in Chinese imports. Meanwhile, the punitive tariff rate for the previous list of US$ 200 billion increased from 10% to 25%, marking the start of a new, more intensive stage of the trade war. Many Taiwanese telecoms that had previously used China for their main production base are now expecting more hits to their bottom line, and are currently accelerating their relocation plans.