Removing barriers: A vendor carries fruits for sale in front of the Opera House in Hanoi. The government is reviewing import tariffs on US goods and is encouraging increased imports of American products. — AFP
HANOI: US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer has told Vietnam’s top trade official that his country must improve the trade balance between the two nations and further open its markets.
Industry and Trade Minister Nguyen Hong Dien, in a meeting last Thursday in Washington with Greer, said his government is weighing the removal of “trade barriers” for American companies and will crack down on export fraud, according to a statement on the ministry’s website.
Vietnam later announced a number of deals between Vietnamese and US companies with an expected total value of US$4.15bil, according to a statement on the website of state-owned PetroVietnam Power.
No financial details were provided about individual agreements.
Vietnam needs to have stronger solutions to open up its market and improve the trade balance between the two countries, Greer told Dien, according to the ministry statement.
The United States ran a US$123.5bil trade deficit with Vietnam in 2024, according to the Office of the United States Trade Representative.
The gap is drawing attention to the country as Trump’s America First agenda relies on tariffs as part of a strategy to rectify what it sees as unfair trade policies.
The trade deficit is the third highest gap for the United States, behind China and Mexico.
Some of it comes down to re-routing, with Chinese companies setting up shop elsewhere to skirt tariffs.
Vietnam overtook Japan as China’s third-largest export destination for the first time in 2024, putting the country at the forefront of the economic conflict between the two superpowers.
Vietnam’s top trade official told Greer the country is looking at removing “trade barriers that hinder investment and business activities” and putting in place mechanisms to prevent trade fraud and illegal transshipments, according to the statement.
The minister reiterated Vietnam’s request to be recognised as a market economy, which would help its companies’ exports to America.
In Hanoi, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh told US Ambassador to Vietnam Marc Knapper last Thursday that Vietnamese officials are “addressing current concerns of the United States in economic-trade-investment relations”, according to a separate post on the government’s website.
The government is reviewing import tariffs on US goods and is encouraging increased imports of American products, such as liquefied natural gas, high-tech items and agricultural products.
The agreements in the PetroVietnam Power statement included negotiations on a range of other agreements, such as importing crude oil, liquefied gas, petrochemical equipment and for power supply projects, among others, with an expected future value of about US$36bil. — Bloomberg
