The status of the U.S.-Vietnam trade deal allegedly reached four weeks ago remains uncertain, after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent admitted Tuesday that he hasn’t even seen it.
Trump announced a supposed agreement between the two countries in a July 2 post on Truth Social, claiming that Vietnam’s exports would be subject to a 20 percent tariff and its “transshipped” goods to a 40 percent tariff. In return, Trump said, the United States was getting “TOTAL ACCESS to [Vietnamese] Markets for Trade.”
The announcement, Politico would report days later, shocked Vietnamese negotiators, who thought they’d agreed to a rate of about 11 percent—which Trump reportedly scrapped and nearly doubled during a later phone call with Vietnam’s general secretary, who’d not been involved with initial negotiations.
Complicating the matter was the absence of “any paperwork indicating a final agreement that includes those tariff rates” and the fact that neither country “formally signed off on a deal.”
Accordingly, the day after the alleged agreement, CNBC asked Bessent about its status. He replied: “I haven’t spoken to [Trump trade representative] Jamieson Greer, who’s heading the team. My understanding is that it’s finalized in principle.”
To date, it remains unclear if it’s been finalized in any more meaningful way. Vietnam has yet to confirm the rates about which Trump boasted, leading CNBC to, once again, ask Bessent whether there is an agreement on paper.
Bessent’s answer on Tuesday was similar to the one he gave 26 days ago. “I didn’t work on that deal,” he said. “But I assume that we do.”
“You haven’t seen that paperwork?” CNBC’s Eamon Javers pressed.
“Ambassador Greer, who is a seasoned veteran with an encyclopedic memory and knowledge of all this, keeps all that,” Bessent replied, stumbling slightly over his words.
Bessent based his assumption that there’s a written and signed agreement on the trade deals reached with Indonesia and the Philippines. Notably, Indonesia contests some of Trump’s claims about its deal, and details about the Philippines deal remain scant beyond Trump’s Truth Social posts.
The trade-deal gray area is not just confined to Southeast Asia, as Trump’s approach to his negotiations and announcements has sown widespread confusion.
For instance, the Financial Times reported last week that officials in the U.S. and Japan have significant disagreements over the terms of their deal—which, despite being the “largest deal in history,” according to Trump, is not recorded on paper. In fact, no legally binding one is to be drawn up, the FT reports.
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