The US trade deficit with Vietnam exceeded US$110 billion in the first 11 months of last month, latest US figures showed, as exports from the Southeast Asian industrial hub grew amid a record fall of its currency against the US dollar.
The latest reading, released on Tuesday by the US statistics agency, showed a nearly 18 percent rise in the deficit compared with the same period the previous year.
The data confirms the country has the fourth-highest commercial surplus with the US, topped only by China, the EU and Mexico.
Photo: Bloomberg
The large gap is seen by analysts as a major risk for the export-reliant nation amid threats from US president-elect Donald Trump to impose tariffs of up to 20 percent on all US imports.
That risk has been compounded by a sharp fall of Vietnam’s dong in recent months, with the dong trading near its lowest ever levels against the US dollar. The trend is closely watched in Washington as Vietnam is one of the countries under scrutiny for potential currency manipulation.
Vietnam, which counts the US as its biggest market, is home to big export-focused industrial operations of US multinationals such as Apple Inc, Google, Nike Inc and Intel Corp.
Latest seasonally adjusted trade figures showed that the trade gap with the US expanded by US$11.3 billion in November, accelerating from October, while in the January-to-November period Vietnam accumulated a trade surplus of US$111.6 billion, up from US$94.8 billion in the same period in 2023. Unadjusted data pointed to a larger gap of US$113.1 billion.
“If the US perceives that Vietnam is deliberately keeping the dong weak to gain an unfair trade advantage, it could trigger renewed accusations of currency manipulation,” said Leif Schneider, head of international law firm Luther LLC in Vietnam.
Trump ended his first term in the White House with Treasury declarations of Vietnam and Switzerland as currency manipulators over their market interventions to weaken the value of their currencies.
Vietnam’s central bank has said it was ready to intervene in the foreign exchange market in case of adverse economic impacts from currency moves and has sold US dollars in the past to strengthen the dong.
The dong’s most recent depreciation against the US dollar is broadly in line with other major currencies.
WEAKER ACTIVITY: The sharpest deterioration was seen in the electronics and optical components sector, with the production index falling 13.2 points to 44.5 Taiwan’s manufacturing sector last month contracted for a second consecutive month, with the purchasing managers’ index (PMI) slipping to 48, reflecting ongoing caution over trade uncertainties, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The decline reflects growing caution among companies amid uncertainty surrounding US tariffs, semiconductor duties and automotive import levies, and it is also likely linked to fading front-loading activity, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said. “Some clients have started shifting orders to Southeast Asian countries where tariff regimes are already clear,” Lien told a news conference. Firms across the supply chain are also lowering stock levels to mitigate
IN THE AIR: While most companies said they were committed to North American operations, some added that production and costs would depend on the outcome of a US trade probe Leading local contract electronics makers Wistron Corp (緯創), Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), Inventec Corp (英業達) and Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶) are to maintain their North American expansion plans, despite Washington’s 20 percent tariff on Taiwanese goods. Wistron said it has long maintained a presence in the US, while distributing production across Taiwan, North America, Southeast Asia and Europe. The company is in talks with customers to align capacity with their site preferences, a company official told the Taipei Times by telephone on Friday. The company is still in talks with clients over who would bear the tariff costs, with the outcome pending further
Six Taiwanese companies, including contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), made the 2025 Fortune Global 500 list of the world’s largest firms by revenue. In a report published by New York-based Fortune magazine on Tuesday, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), ranked highest among Taiwanese firms, placing 28th with revenue of US$213.69 billion. Up 60 spots from last year, TSMC rose to No. 126 with US$90.16 billion in revenue, followed by Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) at 348th, Pegatron Corp (和碩) at 461st, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) at 494th and Wistron Corp (緯創) at
NEGOTIATIONS: Semiconductors play an outsized role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development and are a major driver of the Taiwan-US trade imbalance With US President Donald Trump threatening to impose tariffs on semiconductors, Taiwan is expected to face a significant challenge, as information and communications technology (ICT) products account for more than 70 percent of its exports to the US, Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said on Friday. Compared with other countries, semiconductors play a disproportionately large role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development, Lien said. As the sixth-largest contributor to the US trade deficit, Taiwan recorded a US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US last year — up from US$47.8 billion in 2023 — driven by strong
RSS