Newsweek, April 2025
Vietnam’s offer to lower its trade barriers to delay the implementation of U.S. President Donald Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs has been rejected by a White House adviser. Deputy Prime Minister Bui Thanh Son met with the U.S. ambassador to Vietnam, Marc E. Knapper, on Sunday and reiterated his country’s willingness to lower the import tariff rate on U.S. products to zero in hope of postponing the onset of the new tariffs, according to a government dispatch.
However, U.S. senior trade counselor Peter Navarro rejected this possibility later that day, telling Fox News: “This is not a negotiation, this is a national emergency based on a trade deficit that’s gotten out of control because of cheating.” Since the Liberation Day announcement of a flat 10 percent tariff on all imports—along with the retaliatory tariffs imposed on some of America’s largest trading partners—there has been widespread speculation about whether the U.S. would be open to negotiations.
