WHAT DOES DONALD TRUMP CONSIDER TRANS-SHIPMENTS?
There’s also a question of what Mr Trump considers “trans-shipments”, which he specified would attract a higher 40 per cent tariff rate. In a follow-up post on X, his Secretary of Commerce said trans-shipping meant “if another country sells their content through products exported by Vietnam to us.”
Neither man is clear with how they define “trans-shipping” in their social media posts.
Already, one cannot simply manufacture a product in China, send it to Vietnam, merely change the label and declare the certificate of origin to to be Vietnam, and export to the US. That is considered illegal.
However, taking a good manufactured in one place, sending it to another country, transforming into a new product and then exporting constitutes trade. At least for now.
“Without seeing the details of the agreement, assessing the pros and cons of the deal is not possible. For example, companies don’t know what the definition of trans-shipping refers to in the social media posts,” Adam Sitkoff, head of AmCham in Hanoi, told me.
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/commentary/us-vietnam-trade-deal-tariff-china-decoupling-5218471
