The Country That Has the Biggest Trade Surplus With the U.S. Is Now… Vietnam
Trump’s tariffs have helped Vietnam surpass Mexico and China to hold the largest trade surplus with the U.S.
A year after President Trump set out to rewire global trade in America’s favor, the biggest winner has turned out to be Vietnam.
US President Donald Trump’s efforts to reshape global trade are having effects that extend beyond the initial goals of his tariff policies. These tariff measures have prompted businesses to seek new production locations in Asia, with Vietnam being a prominent example.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Vietnam could be one of the biggest beneficiaries of this trade restructuring. US federal data shows that in the first six months of 2026, Vietnam’s trade surplus with the US reached $114 billion, surpassing Taiwan (China), Mexico, and China.
Trade flows are changing direction.
This shift is occurring as Chinese goods face significantly higher tariffs when entering the US market.
According to the Penn Wharton Budget Model, the effective tariff rate (the actual tariff rate a country collects on imported goods after accounting for all deductions, exemptions, or special trade agreements) of the U.S. on goods imported from China was 23.2% in June, significantly higher than the average of around 7% for goods imported from other economies around the world.
The Trump administration has repeatedly asserted that the goal of its tariff policy is to encourage businesses to bring manufacturing back to the United States, thereby reviving domestic industries and reducing the trade deficit. However, the actual impact of this policy shows that some manufacturing tends to shift to other countries rather than directly back to the United States.
Vietnam, with its geographical proximity to China, increasingly developed production network, and significantly lower effective tariffs, is becoming one of the notable destinations in this shift. In June, the effective tariff on Vietnamese goods entering the US was 6.5%.
Differences in tax rates create a significant advantage for businesses that are reconsidering their supply chains, especially in industries with cross-border production networks and heavy reliance on the US market.
Exports to the US increased sharply.
According to The Wall Street Journal, changes in trade flows are clearly reflected in import and export figures. In the first six months of 2026, US imports from Vietnam reached $123 billion, a 40% increase compared to the same period the previous year. Meanwhile, US imports from China decreased by 23%, to $129 billion during the same period.
The gap between the two figures shows that Vietnam is rapidly closing the gap with China in terms of the value of goods exported to the US market, even though the scale of production and trade between the two economies remains vastly different.
Notably, Vietnam is not the largest exporter of goods to the United States. However, according to The Wall Street Journal, a key factor contributing to Vietnam’s trade surplus is that it imports significantly less from the U.S. than from several other major trading partners such as Mexico, Canada, Taiwan (China), and China. This results in a trade balance between Vietnam and the U.S. heavily tilted in Vietnam’s favor.
Over the years, Vietnam has significantly developed its manufacturing capacity in sectors such as electronics, electrical equipment, machinery, textiles, footwear, and furniture. Many international corporations have also built or expanded manufacturing facilities in Vietnam as part of their supply chain diversification strategies.
Therefore, the increase in exports to the US may reflect several factors simultaneously: the expansion of domestic production capacity, foreign investment flows, the diversification of supply chains, and the impact of changes in US trade policy.
A turning point for the supply chain.
New data suggests that U.S. trade policy is contributing to a supply chain restructuring process that extends beyond the broader U.S.-China trade competition.
According to American reports, Vietnam is one of the economies that has clearly benefited from this process. But in the context of continued volatility in international trade, Vietnam’s emergence in the flow of US trade not only reflects the shift in the balance of exports and imports. It also shows how global businesses are adjusting their strategies in the face of a new trading environment, and Vietnam’s increasingly important position in that reshaping process. (T/H, DBND)
