Vietnam's To Lam Says US Trade Deal Is 'Very Close', But Transshipment Dispute Still Unresolved

Vietnam's top leader says a trade deal with Washington is nearly finished. Whether that ends the real dispute—Chinese goods getting rerouted through Vietnamese factories to dodge US tariffs—remains to be seen.

To Lam, who holds both the Communist Party General Secretary and President titles, told Bloomberg Television on Monday that negotiations are "very close" to a final agreement. He made the comments on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, shortly after meeting with US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.

According to Vietnam's official state news agency VNA, Greer told Lam the two negotiating teams "have made great efforts" and are near "a final outcome." Reuters, carried by U.S. News & World Report, reported the same characterization from the Vietnamese government's own statement. No signed deal exists yet.

The Money Fight

Vietnam runs one of the largest bilateral trade surpluses with the United States of any country, according to the Straits Times. Washington has used that imbalance as leverage throughout the negotiations. Vietnam currently faces a 12.5% tariff and three separate Section 301 investigations, according to BigGo Finance.

Lam's answer: buy more American stuff. He pledged to increase Vietnamese purchases of US aircraft, nuclear power technology, and road and rail infrastructure to close the gap. "Vietnam exports align with US demand without competing directly with US products," Lam said, according to the Straits Times.

That's the easy part. The harder part is transshipment: goods made in China, lightly finished or simply relabeled in Vietnam, then shipped to the US to dodge tariffs aimed at Beijing. US trade officials have pushed Hanoi to tighten rules of origin and customs enforcement over exactly this concern. US customs inspectors have been running spot checks on China-linked factories inside Vietnam in recent months, per the Straits Times, fueling speculation the White House could hit Vietnam with steeper tariffs if it doesn't like what it finds.

Lam pushed back directly. "We do not accept transshipment of goods. Trade must be genuine, with products actually manufactured in Vietnam and meeting international standards."

Nothing in the available reporting shows the investigations have concluded or that customs enforcement data backs up either side definitively. The US side isn't taking Lam's word for it, hence the spot checks.

Diplomacy on the Side

Lam also met Monday with a group of US House lawmakers led by Representative Gregory Meeks, the Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, according to Vietnam Plus. Meeks, a Democrat, affirmed support for deepening the US-Vietnam relationship and pledged to keep helping recover the remains of American service members still missing from the Vietnam War. That's a bipartisan signal on Capitol Hill, separate from the tariff fight playing out through USTR.

Vietnam's state media coverage of the Greer meeting stayed entirely diplomatic. VNA's account doesn't mention the 12.5% tariff, the Section 301 investigations, or the customs spot checks at all. It frames the meeting as smooth progress toward a "stable, substantive, effective and sustainable" partnership. The Straits Times and BigGo Finance, by contrast, both flagged the specific tariff numbers and the open investigations still hanging over the talks. Readers relying only on Vietnamese state coverage would miss that the deal isn't done and real enforcement questions remain unresolved.

Lam also said Vietnam still expects 10% economic growth this year despite energy price pressure tied to the war in Iran, according to BigGo Finance. He was noncommittal on whether he'd meet Trump directly during this US trip, which comes days before Trump is scheduled to meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping and ahead of a planned Lam visit to Canada for talks with Prime Minister Mark Carney.

No signing date has been announced. The three Section 301 investigations remain open. Until Washington closes them out, or Vietnam's customs enforcement satisfies US inspectors, the 12.5% tariff stays on the books regardless of what gets said in New York.