[CTC] Vietnam thought it had a deal on its US tariff rate. Then Trump stepped in.

[Arthur Stamoulis]

*Vietnam thought it had a deal on its US tariff rate. Then Trump stepped
in.*

By Daniel Desrochers, Phelim Kine and Ari Hawkins, Politico

7/10/25



Vietnam thought it had a preliminary deal with the U.S. to lower its tariff
level substantially. Then, at the last minute, President Donald Trump
raised the rate.



As a result, the Vietnamese government still has not formally accepted a
key part of the agreement the president touted on social media last week
<https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114784170652465525>,
despite Trump’s claim in the post that the terms had been agreed to by
Vietnam’s leader, Tô Lâm, according to four people familiar with the
discussions and granted anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
And neither side has released documentation of those terms, raising
questions about whether they did, in fact, reach an agreement, as the White
House labors to prove it is making headway in its trade negotiations with
dozens of major partners.



Trump announced the framework agreement on Truth Social on July 2, just
days before the White House’s self-imposed July 8 deadline for trade
negotiations. The deal was just the second the administration has reached
to avoid its threatened “reciprocal” tariffs, after Trump suggested in an
April interview that he’d made 200 deals
<https://time.com/7280114/donald-trump-2025-interview-transcript/>.


According to Trump’s July 2 post, exports from Vietnam will face a 20
percent tariff — down from the 46 percent that was paused in April — or a
40 percent tariff if they originated in a different country. In exchange,
Vietnam “will ‘OPEN THEIR MARKET TO THE UNITED STATES,’ meaning that, we
will be able to sell our product into Vietnam at ZERO Tariff,” the
president wrote.



That sent shock waves through Vietnam because their negotiators had not, in
fact, agreed to the 20 percent rate; they believed the tariff rate would be
around 11 percent, according to the four people. Trump disregarded that
figure in his phone call with Vietnamese General Secretary Lâm — who had
not been part of the initial tariff negotiations — and instead declared the
U.S. would impose a tariff nearly twice as high.



Some on the U.S. side were surprised, too, including outside groups who’d
been tracking the talks, according to one Washington-based lobbyist who
works with Vietnam and other Asian governments.



“Trump sandbagged everybody,” said the lobbyist. They described the
Vietnamese government’s reaction as “surprise, as well as disappointment
and anger.”



A White House aide, granted anonymity because they were not authorized to
speak publicly, disputed that characterization, saying the Vietnamese
government was aware of the top-line tariff rates ahead of the call.



“My understanding is that the two trade teams kind of hashed it out and it
was a leader-to-leader thing to put final approval on it,” the aide said.



Neither the White House nor Vietnam, however, have released any paperwork
indicating a final agreement that includes those tariff rates, and neither
country has formally signed off on a deal. It’s unclear when, or if, the
higher rate will go into effect.



“It just introduces even a greater element of uncertainty, that even once
you think you’ve negotiated a deal, he can turn around and just change the
terms,” said Wendy Cutler, a former acting deputy U.S. trade representative
for President Barack Obama, who is currently vice president at the Asia
Society Policy Institute, a D.C.-based think tank. “And in this case it
appears that he did it unilaterally and publicly without any buy-in from
Vietnam.”



Spokespeople for the Communist Party of Vietnam as well as the Office of
the U.S. Trade Representative and the Department of Commerce did not
immediately respond to requests for comment.



Trump is impatient with the pace of the trade deals, indicating that he
would prefer to send letters to countries setting the tariff rates
<https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2025/05/trump-new-tariff-rates-00353370>
on
their goods, rather than what he now acknowledges is the arduous process of
negotiating comprehensive trade deals with countries around the world.



“I just want you to know a letter means a deal,” Trump said at the White
House on Tuesday. “We can’t meet with 200 countries.”



Vietnam has watched as Trump this week proposed new tariff rates on other
Asian countries — including an identical 20 percent rate on the Philippines
— to go into effect on Aug. 1, without any of the concessions or rules
about where goods originate that Vietnam is prepared to agree to.



Hanoi has said little publicly about the tariff rates since Trump announced
them on social media. A Vietnamese state media report
<https://en.baochinhphu.vn/general-secretary-to-lam-holds-phone-conversation-with-us-president-donald-trump-111250702222053869.htm>
on
the deal published July 2 didn’t mention any agreed-to duties. Instead, the
report said that Trump’s call with Lâm had resulted in a “Joint Statement
on a fair, balanced reciprocal trade agreement.” That joint statement has
yet to be released.



That may reflect Hanoi’s frustration at Trump’s move to derail the original
agreement. A copy of a draft joint statement of the deal’s terms obtained
by POLITICO
<https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2025/07/u-s-and-vietnam-have-reached-loose-framework-for-further-trade-talks-00437236>
the
same day Trump announced the deal outlined more favorable trading
conditions for Vietnam, including a “substantial reduction” in the U.S.
tariffs on Vietnam's imports.



Regional experts worry the episode could undermine decades of effort to
rebuild diplomatic ties after the Vietnam War, not to mention a surging
commercial relationship. According to the International Trade
Administration, trade between the two countries has ballooned
<https://www.trade.gov/knowledge-product/exporting-vietnam-market-overview#:~:text=Since%20the%20BTA%2C%20bilateral%20trade,market%20for%20U.S.%20agricultural%20exports.>
since
Washington and Hanoi signed a bilateral trade agreement in 2001 — from $2.9
billion in 2002 to over $139 billion in 2022 — transforming Vietnam into
the sixth-largest source of U.S. imports.



“Certainly their trust in the U.S. as a reliable partner, which has been
built over the last 30 years, will take a big hit,” said Scot Marciel, a
former deputy assistant secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific,
who led the U.S. Embassy’s political and economic section in Hanoi from
1993 to 1996. “Purely in terms of U.S.-versus-Chinese influence, China will
benefit from this.”



Other countries are also aware of the last-minute change to the agreed
tariff rates and have discussed it with each other, according to one of the
people cited above as well as an Asian diplomat, highlighting the
uncertainty U.S. trading partners feel as they continue negotiations with a
president who seems to alter his tariff threats at whim.



“To have the president do that basically pulls the rug out from the
credibility of the negotiators, and other countries are watching this
stuff,” said Harry Broadman, a former assistant U.S. trade representative
in the George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations. “If you're going
to the negotiating table with country X, and they just saw country Y did a
deal but then it was undercut, they’ll say, ‘Why am I spending time with
you? And how do I know that what we agree here is going to be ultimately
what the final deal is?’”
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.citizenstrade.org/pipermail/ctcfield-citizenstrade.org/attachments/20250711/167e16b7/attachment.htm>