The US must rule on Vietnam piracy tariffs by 29 November. It usually takes longer.
The US trade office has until 29 November to decide on tariffs on Vietnam over piracy and fake goods. It can give itself three more months.
What happened
A Reuters report in The Straits Times on said the US election result is not expected to stop Donald Trump pursuing new tariffs under open trade investigations, and named one into excess industrial capacity that covers Vietnam. A separate US investigation into Vietnam, on intellectual property (IP), is also still open and has a legal limit of .
The IP investigation opened on . IP means the legal rights to things like software and films. A month earlier the office of Jamieson Greer, the US trade representative, had named Vietnam a priority foreign country, a label US law keeps for the most harmful IP practices.
The law gives the trade office six months from that start. By then it must decide if Vietnam’s practices can be punished and what to do, and the answer can be nothing. In some conditions it may add three months, to . In June it proposed that they can be punished, citing a “persistent failure to resolve long-standing concerns”. By it had published no decision and named no tariff.
Once the investigation is complete, Ambassador Greer will determine, in consultation with President Trump, what, if any, responsive action should be taken to address them.
Office of the US Trade Representative, press release,
Vietnam already pays a 12.5% US tariff. In February the US Supreme Court struck down the global US tariffs, and the Trump administration then opened three investigations into Vietnam. The one on goods made with forced labour ended in July with the 12.5% tariff. The other two, on IP and on excess industrial capacity, are still open and could bring more tariffs. Vietnam’s trade surplus with the US, over $163bn in eight months, is the largest of any partner.
Vietnam wants a trade deal to settle this. On its leader, To Lam, asked Mr Greer for a “comprehensive approach” that includes these investigations. On Vietnam said it had sent the US the final text, and a US commerce official said he was “hopeful” and warned about the trade gap. Vietnamese state media say To Lam is invited to the G20 summit of world leaders in Florida in December, which has raised hopes of a deal there.
Sources: The Straits Times (2), USTR (2, 3), Federal Register, Government of Vietnam
The Pattern
We looked for cases where US law forced the trade office to open an investigation, because it had just named that country a priority foreign country. We checked what it decided in the first six months. We found five such investigations from 1993 to 2013: Brazil, China, Paraguay and Ukraine twice.
Show the other 3 cases
The Read
All five times the US gave itself more time. Where the notices show the day, it did so between day 168 and day 184. In 2013 it opened the Ukraine investigation on and added three months on , almost the same dates as now. Each final decision then came on the last day of the extra time or the day before. Inside the six months the US imposed a penalty only once, when it took away Ukraine’s duty-free access in 2001, and Vietnam is not on that duty-free list.
There are strong reasons for doubt. All five came under Presidents Bill Clinton, George W Bush and Barack Obama, and none under Donald Trump. In 2025 and 2026 four other investigations under the same law, into Nicaragua, Chinese chips, Brazil and forced labour, ended in tariffs. Those had 12 months and could not add time. Two of the tariffs started at 0%, and the chips decision came with no proposal first, so a cheap decision on is possible.
By no tariff rate had been named. In three of those four, tariffs were proposed about seven weeks before they were decided. With three extra months the trade office could name a rate after the G20 and still finish by . The talks in the five past investigations were about the dispute itself, while Vietnam is also close to the US on a wider trade deal, by its own account. The closest example under this government is Chinese shipbuilding. The US put 100% tariffs on Chinese port cranes in , then paused the whole action for a year after a deal with China. In it proposed a further pause to allow more talks.
Sources: Federal Register (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14), US International Trade Commission, US Code, USTR, The Straits Times
Disclaimer
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