Vietnam, US to crack down on trade origin fraud, illegal transshipment

Vietnam and the United States will cooperate in building mechanisms to prevent fraudulent trade, trade origin frauds, and illegal transshipments.

Vietnamese Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Hong Dien and United States Trade Representative (USTR) Jamieson Greer discussed the cooperation at a meeting in Washington D.C. on Thursday (local time), regarding concerns arising from the United States’ new tariff policy.

This is the first ministerial meeting between the two countries’ trade sectors since the debut of the United States' new administration.

They also agreed to jointly build a fair and sustainable business environment by removing barriers against trade and investment.

Minister Dien affirmed Vietnam always regards the United States a top partner and aims to develop the bilateral comprehensive strategic ties. He clarified that import-export activities of Vietnam and the United States complement each other so the two-way trade turnover has been growing fast and streadily.

"A consistent policy of Vietnam is to develop a sustainable, stable, harmonious trade with the United States for win-win outcomes. Vietnam does not have any intentions of making any challenges to unilaterally hurt American economy and laborers," Dien said.

The Vietnamese government is implementing various solutions to boost the trade-investment ties with the United States, the minister stressed.

In reply, Greer said he highly rated Dien’s approach to solve the issues. The United States’ new trade policy aims to boost trade-investment activities, protect the national interests and workers, and does not aim to hurt any partner, he emphasized.

Greer called on Vietnam to further open the market and reduce the trade imbalance (trade deficit for the United States and trade surplus for Vietnam).

The two sides agreed to regularly conduct technical consultations to solve issues of mutual concern. Dien also called on the United States to soon recognize Vietnam as a “market economy” in line with the bilateral comprehensive strategic partnership.

Vietnam posted a trade surplus of $1.47 billion in the first two months of the year, the General Statistics Office (GSO) reported. The United States was Vietnam's biggest export market in the period with an export revenue of $19.6 billion, up 16.5% year-on-year, while China was the biggest import source with $23.3 billion, up 20.7%.

Vietnam's trade surplus with the U.S. in the two months was $17 billion.