Vietnamese and US companies have signed more than US$4 billion in deals, a petrochemical giant said yesterday, as anxiety mounts in Hanoi over potential tariffs under the administration of US President Donald Trump.
The Southeast Asian nation has the third-biggest trade surplus with the US, after China and Mexico — both targeted by Trump since he took office.
A statement posted by PetroVietnam Power Corp (PVPower) on its Web site said the new projects — in areas such as aviation, oil and gas exploration, and petrochemical imports — were worth about US$4.15 billion.
Photo: Reuters
The “highly meaningful” deals were aimed at establishing “balanced and harmonious” trade, and would create hundreds of thousands of jobs for workers in the two nations, PVPower said.
They were signed in the US on Thursday during a visit by Vietnamese Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Hong Dien to meet US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer in Washington.
Greer told Dien that Vietnam “needs to have stronger solutions to open the market and improve the trade balance,” according to a report on the Web site of the Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade.
There is increasing worry in Hanoi that Vietnam could be the next target of Trump’s tariffs, which have sent shock waves through global markets.
Earlier, Hanoi said it was reviewing import duties on goods from the US. Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh told US Ambassador Marc Knapper that the review would look to encourage increased imports of liquified natural gas, as well as agricultural and high-tech products, a report on the government’s Web site said on Thursday.
Chinh told Knapper that Vietnam was “actively addressing the current concerns of the US in economic-trade-investment relations.”
Vietnam was also “reviewing import tariffs on goods from the United States, encouraging increased imports of key US products that Vietnam needs, especially agricultural products, liquefied gas and high-tech products,” the report said.
The US trade deficit in goods with Vietnam was US$123.5 billion last year, up more than 18 percent on 2023, according to the Office of the US Trade Representative.
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