HANOI: Vietnam stated it minimize import duties on a variety of products, together with automobiles, liquefied fuel and a few agricultural merchandise, with considerations 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 stated final month that Hanoi was reviewing levies with a purpose 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 growing fears it could possibly be a key goal of the White Home’s tariff drive, which has despatched shockwaves by international markets.
“From Mar 31, 2025, sure objects equivalent to automobiles, wooden, ethanol, frozen rooster legs, pistachios, almonds, contemporary apples, cherries, raisins, and many others, will likely be topic to a brand new preferential import responsibility fee,” a press release stated late Monday (Mar 31) on the federal government’s official information portal.
It added that import duties on some automobiles will likely be halved and the tax fee for liquefied pure fuel will drop from 5 per cent to 2 per cent.
Tariffs on frozen rooster legs will likely be lowered from 20 per cent to fifteen per cent, the charges on unshelled pistachios will likely 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 consider that Vietnam is doing all the pieces they will to melt the blow,” stated Bruno Jaspaert, CEO at DEEP C Industrial Zones in Vietnam and chairman of the nation’s European chamber of commerce.
“Fairly than retaliate, they provide, and hope to be handled in a greater means than most. However the general expectation is that there’ll nonetheless be tariffs,” he informed AFP.
