The Country That Has the Biggest Trade Surplus With the U.S. Is Now… Vietnam

A year after President Trump set out to rewire global trade in America’s favor, the biggest winner has turned out to be Vietnam.

For the first half of this year, federal data shows Vietnam’s trade surplus with the U.S. hit $114 billion, ahead of semiconductor hub, Taiwan, Mexico, and even China.

It is an unexpected outcome for an economy a quarter the size of Mexico’s, and the result of years of reconciliation after the Vietnam War and turbocharged capitalist development in the Communist nation. But some of the biggest boosts to Vietnamese exports to the U.S. have come from Trump’s global tariff war.

After targeting Chinese imports during his first term, the president again hit them with the highest tariffs as part of his “Liberation Day” duties last year. Despite recent efforts to stabilize ties between the two superpowers, the effective tariff rate on Chinese imports was 23.2% in June, according to the Penn Wharton Budget Model, well above the global 7% average.

Trump said his aim was to revive American manufacturing. Instead, the tariffs moved production from China to its southwestern neighbor, Vietnam, where the effective rate stood at 6.5% in June.

Apple, Nike and Lululemon are among the big companies that have made the shift over the past decade.

Smaller producers followed. In 2024, Miami-based TOV Furniture sourced 60% of its sofas, beds and other products from China, and only 25% from Vietnam. Today, the ratio has flipped: 60% of TOV’s furniture comes from Vietnam, versus 25% from China.

The company’s imports from Vietnam face a 25% tariff, half the rate levied on Chinese products. “We moved simply because of the tariffs,” said founder Bruce Krinsky.

Vietnam isn’t the leading exporter of goods to the U.S. Mexico and Canada are the biggest by far, and Taiwan and China sit just ahead of fifth-place Vietnam. But Vietnam imports far fewer goods from the U.S.—just as Americans increasingly rely on the Southeast Asian country to keep the price of their electronics, furniture and sneakers low.

In the first half of this year, U.S. imports from Vietnam reached $123 billion—up 40% from a year earlier, according to federal data. The value of Vietnamese imports during those six months exceeded the $114 billion total for all of 2023.

Meanwhile, Chinese imports fell to $129 billion in the first half of this year, from $168 billion.

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro has complained that Chinese companies are funneling their goods through other countries, such as sending nearly finished clothes through third countries for final touches.

While illegal transshipment exists, it isn’t the main driver for the jump in exports to the U.S., said Mark Gillin, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam.

About 60% of Vietnamese exports to the U.S. are labeled as machinery, electronics or appliances, sectors that are dominated by big companies with Vietnamese operations, such as Samsung, Intel and electronics manufacturer Foxconn, Gillin said.

“You look at the massive growth of electronics, you know where it’s coming from,” he said. “It’s not about garments coming across the border and putting a new label on it.”