Vietnamese trade officials have been negotiating ways to dodge planned punishing US tariffs

Last year, the US imported 10 times as much from Vietnam as it sold in the country. Photo / 123RF

United States President Donald Trump said on social media that he had reached a trade deal with Vietnam that would open up its markets for American goods, forestalling the possibility for more punitive tariffs.

The announcement marked the first such agreement with a country that the US has a trade deficit with. And it comes before the July 9 deadline, when a reciprocal tariff rate of 46% was slated to kick in.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump said the US will apply a 20% tariff to imported Vietnamese goods and a 40% tax on goods from countries, such as China, that are shipped to American buyers via the Southeast Asian nation.

“Vietnam will pay the US a 20% Tariff on any and all goods sent into our Territory, and a 40% Tariff on any Transshipping. In return, Vietnam will do something that they have never done before, give the United States of America TOTAL ACCESS to their Markets for Trade,” Trump wrote.

“In other words, they will ‘OPEN THEIR MARKET TO THE UNITED STATES,’ meaning that, we will be able to sell our product into Vietnam at ZERO Tariff,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

The White House had not released any text of the agreement or additional details this morning.

The deal could give momentum to other deals in the coming week, said Wendy Cutler, a former US trade negotiator and now vice- president of the Asia Society Policy Institute.

“Given Vietnam’s dependence on the US market as an export destination, the US held most of the cards in these talks,” Cutler said.

It’s unclear how the framework Trump described would work.

For example, tariffs are paid by American importers when foreign products enter the country. In some cases, foreign manufacturers may agree to share some of the cost or it may be passed along to consumers in the form of higher prices.

It was also unclear if “total access” meant tariffs were dropping to zero or that other trade barriers between the Vietnam and US would go away.

Cutler said the relatively high tariffs agreed by the two sides were surprising. The deal paves the way for gains by US manufacturers and farmers but will require additional negotiations to “hammer out details, presumably in such areas as rules of origin, supply chains and investment restrictions”.

The major financial markets were trading slightly up after the announcement. Still, Wall Street has been cautious that there are still a slew of trade deals to be settled, while the Administration considers imposing additional tariffs on selected products such as lumber and pharmaceuticals.

Vietnamese trade representatives have been negotiating ways to dodge more punishing double-digit tariffs that Trump proposed earlier this year.

Vietnam in particular has benefitted from a shift away from China among US customers over the past decade. But it also relies heavily on China for raw materials that have helped fuel its manufacturing sector.

Last year, the country’s trade surplus with the US was the third-largest, behind major players China and Mexico.

The US imported more than twice as much from Vietnam in 2024 as it did in 2019, before the pandemic triggered massive supply chain snarls that accelerated a shift away from China, which took root during Trump’s first term.

Also last year, the US imported 10 times as much from Vietnam as it sold in the country.

The Trump Administration blames Vietnam’s trade barriers for lagging US exports. But the country’s 100 million people are less than one-third of the US population and are much poorer with an annual per capita GDP of about US$4300 ($7000), according to the World Bank.

China has been trying to capitalise on global changes, too. US trade officials and businesses have been concerned that Chinese companies are using Vietnam as a conduit for sending goods to the US - and avoiding trade barriers as a result.

Many Chinese manufacturers have also established factories in Vietnam to meet American demand.