ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA, US — As part of a bilateral package announced during US Vice President Kamala Harris’ Indo-Pacific trip this week, Vietnam will reduce or eliminate import tariffs on several US commodities, including wheat.

The tariff suspensions are expected to be implemented soon and will help reduce food costs for the Vietnamese people. It also will help make US wheat more competitive in Vietnam’s growing wheat market.

Reacting to the news, US Wheat Associates (USW) said it was grateful to the Biden administration and the US Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) for their work alongside Vietnam’s Ministry of Finance to reduce the cost of wheat for Vietnam’s millers and consumers.

“Vietnam, like many countries this year, has seen significant food and feed price inflation due to the rise in global commodity prices and COVID impacts on supply chains,” USW said. “Vietnam’s government should be commended for taking this proactive step to assist their domestic millers and consumers.”

The newly announced reduction follows one from July 2020, when Vietnam reduced its tariff on imported US wheat (excluding durum) from 5% to 3% in a revision of its Most Favored Nation (MFN) tariff rates. Vietnam was the last remaining Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) country applying a tariff against US wheat imports but not against Canadian and Australian wheat.

Even with the tariffs, Vietnam’s imports of US hard red spring (HRS), soft white (SW) and hard red winter (HRW) wheat exceeded 500,000 tonnes in marketing year 2020-21, second in volume only to Australia.

Vietnam currently imports an average of more than 3 million tonnes of wheat per year.