In January 2025, the United States was Vietnam's largest export market with a turnover of 9.8 billion USD.
In opposite direction, import turnover from the United States reached 1.3 billion USD.
Thus, trade surplus with the United States in the first month of the year reached 8.5 billion USD, down 3.5% compared to the same period last year.
The United States is a key market that many Vietnamese enterprises are targeting to promote import and export activities. At the same time, Vietnam is also attracting and receiving high-tech investment capital from the United States, especially in fields such as microchips and semiconductors, to keep up with the world's science and technology era. Vietnam currently plays an important role in the US global supply chain, while US businesses have made great contributions to Vietnam's economic transformation and development
According to data from General Department of Customs, in 2024, total two-way trade turnover between Vietnam and the US reach more than 132 billion USD. Of which, Vietnam's exports to the US reach nearly 119 billion USD, up 23.3% over the same period in 2023; imports from the US reach 13 billion USD, up 7.3% over the same period in 2023.
By the end of 2024, Vietnam become the 8th largest trading partner and the 4th largest export market of the US in the ASEAN region. In contrast, the US is the second largest trading partner and the largest export market of Vietnam. Vietnam's main export items to the US include footwear, wooden furniture, machinery and optical equipment...
Vietnam Trade Office in the US believes that in order to increase exports to the US market, domestic enterprises should coordinate with importers and distributors in the US to study flexible payment methods and support risk sharing, especially in initial stages of market access. For agricultural and food products, enterprises should consider linking up and investing in cold storage to establish distribution centers for Vietnamese goods at ports with a large enough scale to serve many product groups. This will help reduce costs and create a proactive position for enterprises to bring goods to the market.
In addition, growth of exports to the US requires Vietnamese enterprises to pay more attention to complying with trade regulations, avoiding risk of being sued, investigated and applying trade defense measures, tax evasion as well as other restrictions that the US may impose to support domestic production.
Agreeing, in an interview with a reporter from Industry and Trade Newspaper, Dr. Nguyen Minh Phong - an economic expert, said that Vietnamese enterprises must pay special attention to early warning activities that Ministry of Industry and Trade has carried out in recent times to minimize risk of goods being subject to trade defense measures by this market. At the same time, the authorities need to carefully inspect and avoid illegal transfer of goods into Vietnam to fraudulently identify origin of the goods.

Source: Vitic/ congthuong.vn