HANOI (AFP) – Vietnam said it cut import duties on a range of goods including cars, liquefied gas and some agricultural products, with concerns escalating ahead of United States (US) President Donald Trump’s planned unveiling of sweeping tariffs on “all countries”.
The announcement came after Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh said last month that Hanoi was reviewing levies in order to encourage increased imports from the US. Washington’s trade deficit with Vietnam is the third highest of any country, after China and Mexico, and there are increasing fears it could be a key target of the White House’s tariff drive, which has sent shockwaves through global markets.
“From March 31, 2025, certain items such as cars, wood, ethanol, frozen chicken legs, pistachios, almonds, fresh apples, cherries, raisins, etc, will be subject to a new preferential import duty rate,” a statement said recently on the government’s official news portal. It added that import duties on some cars will be halved and the tax rate for liquefied natural gas will drop from five per cent to two per cent.
Tariffs on frozen chicken legs will be reduced from 20 per cent to 15 per cent, the rates on unshelled pistachios will be slashed from 15 per cent to five per cent, and for almonds it will drop from 10 per cent to five per cent. “I believe that Vietnam is doing everything they can to soften the blow,” said CEO at DEEP C Industrial Zones in Vietnam and Chairman of the country’s European Chamber of Commerce Bruno Jaspaert.
“Rather than retaliate, they give, and hope to be treated in a better way than most. But the overall expectation is that there will still be tariffs,” he told AFP. Vietnam is a manufacturing powerhouse that is heavily reliant on exports and the US was its biggest market last year. Many American companies have built factories there and Chinese firms are also using the country to access the US market.
Trump said on Sunday tariffs would apply to “all countries”, not just those with the largest trade imbalances with the US, but added that he would be “very kind” to trading partners.
Vietnam’s Finance Ministry said last week that the changes in duties were to “cope with the complicated and unpredictable developments of the world’s geopolitical and economic situation, especially the changes in economic, trade and tariff policies”.
Chinh also told US ambassador Marc Knapper last month that Vietnam was “actively addressing the current concerns of the US in economic-trade-investment relations”, including sending its top trade official to the US.
