Trump Announces US Trade Deal With Vietnam

(CNN): Against a ticking clock, President Donald Trump said Wednesday (3) the United States has reached a trade agreement with Vietnam, pulling off the administration’s third significant deal ahead of a self-imposed July 9 deadline.

Still, the state of global trade largely remains in flux.

“I just made a Trade Deal with Vietnam,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.

In a subsequent post announcing more details, Trump said the United States will charge a 20% tariff for Vietnamese exports into America, and a 40% tariff for “transshipping.” 

US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in a post on X Wednesday afternoon the “transshipping” tariff means “if another country sells their content through products exported by Vietnam to us — they’ll get hit with a 40% tariff.”

The 20% tariff is double the current minimum tariff rate the US is charging on goods from Vietnam and virtually every other country.

“In return, Vietnam will do something that they have never done before, give the United States of America TOTAL ACCESS to their Markets for Trade,” he added. “In other words, they will ‘OPEN THEIR MARKET TO THE UNITED STATES,’ meaning that, we will be able to sell our product into Vietnam at ZERO Tariff.”

It wasn’t immediately clear if the deal was finalized or whether Vietnam had agreed to what Trump announced. Vietnam’s state-run news outlet, Việt Nam News, reported that General Secretary Tô Lâm and Trump spoke on the phone Wednesday to patch up the terms of the deal, which it referred to as a framework. Vietnam’s US embassy did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.