US President Donald Trump has announced a new trade deal with Vietnam’s Communist Party General Secretary To Lam, outlining significant tariff changes and full US market access, per a post from the US President on Truth Social→view source.

Trump stated that Vietnam would pay a 20 percent tariff on all goods sent to the US, and a 40 percent tariff on transshipped goods.

Other key details

In return, he said Vietnam would grant the US total market access, allowing American products to enter Vietnam at zero tariff.
Trump described the deal as a “Great Deal of Cooperation” and praised To Lam, calling him “highly respected” and his negotiations “an absolute pleasure”.
He highlighted SUVs and large engine vehicles as key US exports that could benefit from this alleged agreement.

Vietnam state-media has confirmed that a deal has been reached though has not yet specified details.

“General Secretary To Lam and President Donald Trump welcomed the agreement reached by the two countries’ negotiating teams on the Joint Vietnam–United States Statement on a Fair, Balanced, and Reciprocal Trade Agreement Framework,” Vietnam News has said→view source.

It’s not clear what will constitute a “transhipped good”, nor the process that will be used to single out these products for separate tariffs.

Usually this would be done through a circumvention investigation conducted by the US Department of Commerce at the request of US producers/manufacturers, as in the case of Chinese solar panels being re-routed through Southeast Asia.

These investigations, however, can be time and resource intensive and applying it at the scale would be challenging.

Moreover, the volume of goods being transhipped through Vietnam does look to be sizable.

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