The report cites a letter by the American Chamber of Commerce in Hanoi, speaking on behalf of Vietnamese subsidiaries of big investors such as Apple, in saying that:
“Vietnam has emerged as a valued partner of the US in the context of diversifying supply chains. We urge the US government to consider this deficit trend as evidence of President Trump’s success during his first term in diversifying supply chains in the Indo-Pacific region. We urge the US to avoid retaliatory and sectoral tariff measures against the logical outcome of its own policy goals.”
The full report by the FT can be found here (might be gated).
The idea here is that US firms themselves are looking for a proxy to bypass the additional cost from tariffs amid Trump’s latest trade policy implementation. It’s not just Chinese firms that are into origin washing clearly. The whole point is to opt for the route with the cheapest option and Vietnam is a hot spot proxy amid the ongoing US-China trade war.
We’ll have to see now what happens after the 90-day pause runs its course next month. Vietnam was initially slapped with 46% tariffs, which will be a serious blow for US firms hoping to take advantage of the origin washing of Chinese goods. Given the request, I would also say it points to the notion that businesses are not too confident of any US-China trade deal.
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