HANOI (Reuters): Vietnam said on Friday its trade minister met with the US Commerce Secretary and senators during a visit to the United States, pledging during talks on tariffs to narrow their trade gap and combat trade fraud and illegal transhipment.
Vietnam and the United States this week concluded a second round of trade negotiations, as the South-East Asian industrial hub seeks a deal to avoid a 46% tariff rate on Vietnamese goods, imposed largely due to its big trade surplus with Washington.
During the meeting with the U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Trade Minister Nguyen Hong Dien also urged the United States to recognise Vietnam as a market economy soon and to remove it from its strategic export control lists, the ministry said.
Despite Vietnam consistently being one of Asia's fastest-growing economies in the past two decades and its multiple free-trade agreements, the United States still recognises it as a non-market economy, despite Hanoi arguing it has made sufficient reforms to justify an upgrade.
The United States is Vietnam's largest export market and its trade surplus with Washington exceeded US$123 billion last year, a trade gap Hanoi says it is committed to narrowing.
"This would bring practical benefits to both countries and help improve bilateral trade in a fairer, more harmonious and more sustainable manner," the ministry said in a statement.
Dien also separately met US senators, including Ted Cruz and Steve Daines, and pledged during the meetings to promote more balanced bilateral trade.
(Reporting by Khanh Vu; Editing by Martin Petty) - Reuters
