HANOI:  , Vietnam is reviewing import duties on items from the United States, the government said, as stress mounts in Hanoi over possible levies under President Donald Trump’s administration.
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh told US ambassador Marc Knapper that the review would look to encourage increased imports of liquified natural gas, as well as agricultural and high-tech products, a report on the government’s website said on Thursday ( Mar 13 ).
Vietnam represents the United States’s third-highest business gap, behind China and Mexico.
There is increasing fret that Hanoi could be the next goal of Trump’s taxes, which have sent shockwaves through international markets.
Chinh told Knapper during a meeting on Thursday that Vietnam is “actively addressing the current issues of the US in economic-trade-investment relationships”, including sending Vietnam’s leading industry standard to the United States this year, the report said.
Vietnam is also “reviewing trade tariffs on products from the United States, encouraging increased imports of essential US goods that Vietnam needs, mainly agricultural products, liquid oil and high-tech products”, the statement added.
The industry standard, Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Hong Dien, was in Washington on Thursday for a conference with US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.
Greer told Dien that Vietnam “needs to possess stronger options to open the market and improve the business equilibrium”, according to a statement on the website of Vietnam’s business department.
Dien said that Vietnam was working to build a “harmonious, green” economic and trade relationship with the United States, the government statement said.
The US trade deficit in products with Vietnam was US$ 123.5 billion in 2024, off more than 18 per cent on 2023, according to the Office of the United States Trade Representative.
Vietnam is a developing powerhouse that is heavily rely on imports. The United States was the region’s biggest export industry in 2024.