Vietnam Blinks (or did they Wink?)

After Trump’s 46% tariff thunderclap on Vietnamese imports, Hanoi didn’t flinch, it countered. Not with confrontation but with conditions.  It is important to check the actual response from Hanoi vs. Trump’s post.

Vietnam has signaled readiness to cut tariffs to zero, but only as part of a mutual agreement. In other words: reciprocity, not subjugation.

This isn’t a surrender. It’s geoeconomic judo. Vietnam knows the U.S. industrial base is hollowed out after 40 years of neoliberal offshoring. Trump’s tariff war aims to force countries into balanced trade, but without a domestic manufacturing revival at home, it’s a dangerous game of bluff. Vietnam is calling it.

Peel back the layers: This is a test balloon for Global South negotiation strategy. Hanoi is willing to play ball — but only if Washington does too. The implication? The unipolar rules-based order is cracking, and “all stick, no carrot” won’t cut it anymore.

Vietnam’s structural surplus with the U.S. is partly because U.S. corporations moved their supply chains there. Slapping Hanoi now without reindustrializing domestically is just performative nationalism.

Vietnam is of course hedging. Cozying up to BRICS, trading with Russia and China in local currencies, and now probing if Trump’s “America First” really means “Deals for All”, or just more dollar dominance dressed up in populism.

The bottom line is that this is not a win, not yet. It’s a reset request, and the Global South is watching. Will the U.S. match reciprocity with respect or blow another chance to lead through cooperation instead of coercion?

The era of vassals is over. Mutual benefit or bust. Vietnam just said it loud and clear.