President Trump claims to have had a ‘very productive phone call’ with General Secretary To Lam

On the evening of April 4, 2025, General Secretary To Lam had a phone call with US President Donald J. Trump about Vietnam-US relations. Attending the phone call were Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, Chief of the Party Central Committee Office Le Hoai Trung, and Deputy Prime Minister Ho Duc Phoc.

On the afternoon of April 4, 2025, US President Donald Trump said that he had just "had a very productive phone call" with General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam To Lam. Screenshot
Writing on the social network Truth Sociald at noon on April 4, local time, US President Donald Trump said that he had just "had a very productive phone call" with General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam To Lam.

President Trump wrote: "I just had a very productive phone call with Mr. To Lam, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam. He told me that Vietnam wants to reduce tariffs to LEVEL 0 if a deal can be reached with the United States. On behalf of our country, I thanked him and said that I look forward to meeting him in person in the near future."

Previously on April 2, US President Donald Trump announced new tariffs with more than 180 countries and territories.

Accordingly, the US began imposing a 10% base tax on almost all of its trading partners, effective from April 5.

In addition, from April 9, imported goods from about 60 countries implementing tariff and non-tariff barriers on US goods will be subject to a reciprocal tax of 10% to 49%. Of which, Vietnamese goods exported to the US will be subject to a tax of 46%.

The new tax rate will be applied on top of the existing tax. For example, the reciprocal tax announced by the US on Chinese goods is 34% and China is currently subject to a tax rate of 20%, so the actual tax rate on goods imported into the US from this country is calculated to be 54%.

Thanh Nam/Tin Tuc Newspaper