The US makes a ‘tremendous trade/tariff deal with Vietnam’.

With a sidewalk bowl of phở and a plastic spoon, Sony Thang breaks the spell.  

They caved! They are traitors! They are empire! Is the cry that went up after the announcement of the Trade Deal with Vietnam.  20% Tariffs!  40% Transhipment Tariffs! 0% tariffs on goods from the US to Vietnam.  Vietnam opens its market to the US!  USA! USA!

I am tempted to say the poor suckers, and I don’t mean Vietnam.  Woe is Us!  We are our own worst enemies as we have not learnt to analyze and to Call It By Name.  We flail, and we kick and we scream, but in reality we have to get to work!

Sony Thang did the work this time. He is my kind of ‘resistance’.

Sony Thang

They say Vietnam accepted a lopsided deal.
That we agreed to pay tariffs on our exports to the U.S. while letting American goods enter our market for free.
That we bowed.
That we submitted.
That we traded dignity for access.

But that is not what happened.
Vietnam does not pay American tariffs.
American businesses do.
Every time a container ship docks in California with Vietnamese goods, it is the importer in Los Angeles, not the worker in Bình Dương, who pays the 20 percent surcharge.
Every time a piece of Vietnamese furniture enters a U.S. home, it is the American consumer, not the Vietnamese farmer, who foots the bill.
The U.S. is not taxing Vietnam.
It is taxing itself.
And it is doing so not because we demanded it, but because it cannot imagine a world where we win on merit.

Vietnam built its economy from the rubble of war.
With no Marshall Plan.
No empire to bankroll our rise.
No military bases across the globe to force open markets.
We earned every dollar of our trade.
We built every factory.
We trained every worker.
We climbed out of poverty not on pity, but on perseverance.

What terrifies the empire is not that we are dependent on them.
It is that they are still dependent on us.
They rely on Vietnamese labor to clothe their children, furnish their homes, and assemble their electronics.
They count on our stability to anchor their corporations in Asia.
They need us to counterbalance China, but fear that we might become too strong, too sovereign, too unaligned.

So they do what empires always do.
They tax. They threaten. They distort.

They say Vietnam is growing rich off the American consumer.
But we did not beg for that consumer.
We did not invade their country.
We did not lobby their government to make them buy from us.
They came to us because we produce better, faster, cheaper.
Because our people work with skill, precision, and dignity.
Because we know how to build.

If the U.S. wants to cripple its own supply chains out of spite, let it.
If it wants to burden its own companies to punish our success, let it.
If it wants to price out its own low-income consumers to feel powerful, let it.

We have survived worse.
This is not the first time a foreign power misunderstood Vietnam.
Not the first time they mistook our patience for passivity.
Our silence for consent.

But we remember history too well to be fooled.
The French called us primitives.
The Americans called us pawns.
Now they call us partners.
But we have only ever been one thing.

Vietnamese.

And the glory of a people who endured centuries of occupation, who bled for independence, who turned famine into industry and rubble into factories.
That glory will not be stopped by a tariff.
The empire may tax what we send. But it cannot tax what we are.

And he continued!

0% tariffs just means your goods get through customs cheaper.
It doesn’t mean anyone wants them.
It doesn’t mean they’ll sell.
It doesn’t mean your brands will beat ours.

Ask Starbucks.

Ask McDonald’s.

They’ve had “unrestricted access” for years.
And still can’t outsell a sidewalk bowl of phở.

Tariff-free doesn’t mean victory.
It just means you’re allowed in the ring.
You think 0% means control.
We know it means competition.

And that’s where you keep losing.
The empire taxed itself to slow us down.
We opened the gates, watched your brands walk in, and then watched them beg for relevance.

So go ahead.
Celebrate your tariff.
Wave your flag. Quote your GDP.

We’ll be here.
Outselling your giants with a plastic stool and a boiling pot.
And the world still lining up at our door.

—

That’s the way, Aha Aha, I like it! Aha aha!