HANOI: Vietnam mentioned it reduce import duties on a variety of products, together with vehicles, liquefied fuel and a few agricultural merchandise, with issues escalating forward of US President Donald Trump’s deliberate unveiling of sweeping tariffs on “all international locations”.
The announcement got here after Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh mentioned final month that Hanoi was reviewing levies to be able to encourage elevated imports from the USA.
Washington’s commerce deficit with Vietnam is the third highest of any nation, after China and Mexico, and there are rising fears it might be a key goal of the White Home’s tariff drive, which has despatched shockwaves via international markets.
“From Mar 31, 2025, sure objects equivalent to vehicles, wooden, ethanol, frozen hen legs, pistachios, almonds, recent apples, cherries, raisins, and many others, shall be topic to a brand new preferential import responsibility fee,” an announcement mentioned late Monday (Mar 31) on the federal government’s official information portal.
It added that import duties on some vehicles shall be halved and the tax fee for liquefied pure fuel will drop from 5 per cent to 2 per cent.
Tariffs on frozen hen legs shall be decreased from 20 per cent to fifteen per cent, the charges on unshelled pistachios shall be slashed from 15 per cent to five per cent, and for almonds, it’s going to drop from 10 per cent to five per cent.
“I imagine that Vietnam is doing all the things they’ll to melt the blow,” mentioned Bruno Jaspaert, CEO at DEEP C Industrial Zones in Vietnam and chairman of the nation’s European chamber of commerce.
“Slightly than retaliate, they provide, and hope to be handled in a greater manner than most. However the general expectation is that there’ll nonetheless be tariffs,” he informed AFP.
