HANOI- Vietnam will cut its tariffs on several US products including LNG and cars, the head of the Finance Ministry’s tax policy department said, as the country tries to avoid being hit with US tariffs because of its large bilateral trade surplus.
The Southeast Asian industrial hub has taken a series of measures to reduce its trade surplus with Washington, which exceeded $123 billion last year, after US President Donald Trump flagged wide-ranging tariffs on trading partners.
Among the cuts, the tariff on American LNG will be cut to 2 percent from 5 percent, on automobiles to 32 percent from a range of 45 percent to 64 percent, and on ethanol to 5 percent from 10 percent, Nguyen Quoc Hung said in a statement posted on the ministry’s website late on Tuesday.
The tariff cuts are aimed at “improving trade balances with (Vietnam)’s trade partners,” Hung said, adding that while the US and Vietnam had a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership the countries had not signed a free-trade agreement.
Vietnam has not yet imported LNG from the US but the country has been in talks with US suppliers for its future fleet of LNG power plants, the first two of which are scheduled to start commercial power generation by June this year.
