US and Vietnamese businesses have asked US President Donald Trump’s administration to delay its planned 46 percent tariff on Vietnamese goods, saying the levy would hurt them and bilateral commercial relations.
The Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) and the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) in Hanoi expressed concern to US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick in a letter dated on Saturday, saying the tariff, to take effect on Wednesday, was “shockingly high.”
“Lower tariffs for products coming into Vietnam, and for products reaching the American consumer is what will help US companies, the economy, and consumers,” AmCham and VCCI said in a statement. “Higher tariffs will not.”
Photo: AFP
The Southeast Asian country, a major regional manufacturing base for many Western companies, posted a trade surplus of more than US$123 billion with the US, its largest export destination, last year.
Trump and Vietnamese President To Lam agreed on Friday to discuss a deal to remove tariffs, both said after a phone call that Trump called “very productive.”
Even before Trump’s Wednesday announcement of sweeping global tariffs, Vietnam cut several duties as part of a series of concessions to the US, which also included pledges to buy more US goods, such as planes and agriculture products.
Meanwhile, Hong Kong Financial Secretary Paul Chan (陳茂波) on Sunday said that US tariffs undermine international trade and would ultimately hurt Americans.
There are no winners in trade wars, Chan wrote in a blog, adding that the levies imposed by Trump had dragged down the US stock market.
Chan at a seminar on Saturday said that the territory would not impose countermeasures on the US.
The territory’s government “of course, strongly opposes the actions by the US, and we also need to be defensive,” Chan said.
Still, Hong Kong should remain “free and open,” and has a mechanism to identify risks that could threaten the financial system, he said.
Trump announced global tariffs, including a 34 percent charge on imports from China, which also apply to Hong Kong.
Last year, the US accounted for 6.5 percent of Hong Kong’s overall merchandise exports, Chan wrote.
Meanwhile, the territory’s shipments to Southeast Asia and the Middle East have been growing, with Southeast Asia becoming its second-largest merchandise export market, the financial secretary said.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
Chizuko Kimura has become the first female sushi chef in the world to win a Michelin star, fulfilling a promise she made to her dying husband to continue his legacy. The 54-year-old Japanese chef regained the Michelin star her late husband, Shunei Kimura, won three years ago for their Sushi Shunei restaurant in Paris. For Shunei Kimura, the star was a dream come true. However, the joy was short-lived. He died from cancer just three months later in June 2022. He was 65. The following year, the restaurant in the heart of Montmartre lost its star rating. Chizuko Kimura insisted that the new star is still down
While China’s leaders use their economic and political might to fight US President Donald Trump’s trade war “to the end,” its army of social media soldiers are embarking on a more humorous campaign online. Trump’s tariff blitz has seen Washington and Beijing impose eye-watering duties on imports from the other, fanning a standoff between the economic superpowers that has sparked global recession fears and sent markets into a tailspin. Trump says his policy is a response to years of being “ripped off” by other countries and aims to bring manufacturing to the US, forcing companies to employ US workers. However, China’s online warriors
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) listed the challenges of ensuring export control compliance by its customers, months after the company’s artificial intelligence (AI) silicon was found to have flowed to US-sanctioned Huawei Technologies Co (華為) via intermediaries. “TSMC’s role in the semiconductor supply chain inherently limits its visibility and information available to it regarding the downstream use or user of final products that incorporate semiconductors manufactured by it,” the Hsinchu-based company said in its latest annual report released on Friday. The world’s largest contract chipmaker said the constraint impedes its ability to prevent unintended end-uses of its semiconductors, as well
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) expects steady growth this year despite global economic uncertainty due to continued momentum from tech trends such as 5G, artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC) applications. In the company’s annual shareholders’ report released on Thursday, TSMC chairman and CEO C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said the company is well-positioned to meet market demand with its differentiated technology platforms. The company’s 2-nanometer process is on track for volume production in the second half of this year, while its next-generation nanosheet-based A16 process, aimed at HPC applications, is scheduled for mass production late next year, Wei said. Advanced technologies —
RSS