Vietnam Trade Deals Expected From Trump-Phuc Summit

President Donald Trump's meeting with Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc is expected to be punctuated Wednesday by the unveiling of billions of dollars in trade deals that could lessen America's disproportionate trade shortfall with the growing Asian economy.

Phuc appeared at an event hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday night, joined by U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and General Electric CEO Steve Bolze. Though details of the reportedly forthcoming pacts were scarce, the Vietnamese prime minister announced plans to "increase the import of high technologies and services from the United States" and said "many important deals will be made" during the visit.

The deals in goods and services are expected to be valued between $15 billion and $17 billion, according to Phuc's remarks. Bolze, whose company opened an outfit in Vietnam in 1993 and currently employees roughly 3,000 local workers there, also said he plans to sign "$6 billion worth of business going forward with Vietnam." Whether that sum was lumped in with the one teased by Phuc was unclear.

"As the Trump administration begins to advance its agenda for free and fair trade, Prime Minister Phuc's visit to Washington is a timely and important opportunity for our two countries to reflect on the impressive growth of our bilateral relationship over the last two decades," Lighthizer said Tuesday night.

Phuc is scheduled to meet with Trump on Wednesday, a bilateral get-together that follows Trump's stateside confabs with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese President Xi Jinping earlier this year. Phuc, however, will be the first Southeast Asian leader to meet with Trump at the White House.

Vietnam's proximity to China and the disputed South China Sea make it a key strategic partner for the U.S. And although Trump and Xi have signaled a mutual interest in cooperation, maintaining strong relations with China's neighbors is still expected to be a priority.

"[T]here is a growing consensus among American China experts on the need to get tougher with China by strengthening the U.S. military and diplomatic position in Asia and then, together with friends and allies, encouraging Beijing to take more constructive positions on regional issues," Jonathan Stromseth, a senior fellow and the Lee Kuan Yew chair in Southeast Asian Studies at The Brookings Institution, wrote earlier this year. "Relations with Vietnam could expand considerably in coming years."

Lighthizer indicated Tuesday night that the Trump administration thinks it has "a lot of work to do" to improve its relationship with Vietnam – particularly with respect to trade. The U.S. maintained a $32 billion goods deficit with Vietnam last year and had already racked up an $8.1 billion deficit in the first three months of 2017, according to the Census Bureau.

Ten years ago, America's trade deficit with Vietnam totaled $8.7 billion for the entire year.

"This growth in our trade deficit presents new challenges and shows us there is considerable potential to improve further our important relationship," Lighthizer said.

America's trade relationship with Vietnam was stunted in part by the country's lackluster economic performance for many years, and in part by decades of trade barriers raised by the U.S. in the aftermath of the Vietnam War.

But much like China, Vietnam has roared onto the international trade and economic scene in recent years. The country's annual rate of economic growth exceeded 5 percent in all but one year between 1990 and 2015, according to the World Bank. America's gross domestic product didn't hit a 5 percent pace in any year during that same window.

Granted, the World Bank in 2015 still ranked Vietnam the world's 54th-largest economy, and it's a lot easier to bolster a GDP that amounts to about 1 percent of America's. But Vietnamese products were still the 12th-most regularly imported into the U.S. last year, beating out products from larger economies like Switzerland and Malaysia.

America's trade deficit with Vietnam last year also was the sixth-largest among all its international trade partners, eclipsing trade gaps with the likes of Italy, South Korea, India, Thailand and France.

Source: usnews.com 

Coleected by: Nhu Vu SAPUWA