US and Vietnamese businesses have asked US President Donald Trump’s administration to delay its planned 46 percent tariff on Vietnamese goods, saying the levy would hurt them and bilateral commercial relations.
The Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) and the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) in Hanoi expressed concern to US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick in a letter dated on Saturday, saying the tariff, to take effect on Wednesday, was “shockingly high.”
“Lower tariffs for products coming into Vietnam, and for products reaching the American consumer is what will help US companies, the economy, and consumers,” AmCham and VCCI said in a statement. “Higher tariffs will not.”
Photo: AFP
The Southeast Asian country, a major regional manufacturing base for many Western companies, posted a trade surplus of more than US$123 billion with the US, its largest export destination, last year.
Trump and Vietnamese President To Lam agreed on Friday to discuss a deal to remove tariffs, both said after a phone call that Trump called “very productive.”
Even before Trump’s Wednesday announcement of sweeping global tariffs, Vietnam cut several duties as part of a series of concessions to the US, which also included pledges to buy more US goods, such as planes and agriculture products.
Meanwhile, Hong Kong Financial Secretary Paul Chan (陳茂波) on Sunday said that US tariffs undermine international trade and would ultimately hurt Americans.
There are no winners in trade wars, Chan wrote in a blog, adding that the levies imposed by Trump had dragged down the US stock market.
Chan at a seminar on Saturday said that the territory would not impose countermeasures on the US.
The territory’s government “of course, strongly opposes the actions by the US, and we also need to be defensive,” Chan said.
Still, Hong Kong should remain “free and open,” and has a mechanism to identify risks that could threaten the financial system, he said.
Trump announced global tariffs, including a 34 percent charge on imports from China, which also apply to Hong Kong.
Last year, the US accounted for 6.5 percent of Hong Kong’s overall merchandise exports, Chan wrote.
Meanwhile, the territory’s shipments to Southeast Asia and the Middle East have been growing, with Southeast Asia becoming its second-largest merchandise export market, the financial secretary said.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
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