US tariffs for Vietnam: Apple production could suffer
Vietnam, along with India, is one of Apple's most important production locations to escape China. But the Trump administration is now tightening tariffs.
Flags of Vietnam.
(Image: Xita/Shutterstock.com)
After the first Trump administration took office in 2017, Apple increasingly began to diversify its production: China in particular, previously the most important production location, was to reduce capacity so that the company would suffer less in the emerging trade war with the USA. In its search for new regions for production, Apple ended up in India, where at least 25 percent of all iPhones are already produced, but also in other regions, including Vietnam. The problem: new tariffs imposed by the US government not only on China, but also on other countries, threaten the move – or make it seem less clever.
More expensive even with a deal
The USA has now announced a “deal” for Vietnam that includes a tariff rate of 20 percent. What sounds like “not much” is, after all, double the current tariff rate within the 90-day period that Trump gave himself for negotiations. If no deal had been reached, the USA wanted to set 46 percent. In addition to the 20 percent, there is also a so-called transshipping duty: 40 percent is to be paid if products are only “looped through” Vietnam, i.e., actually originate from other countries such as China, but then end up in the USA.
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Apple currently manufactures accessory products such as the Apple Watch and AirPods in Vietnam, as well as more important hardware such as certain versions of the Mac mini, MacBook Pro and iPad. It initially remained unclear whether transshipping costs would be incurred because components from China are assembled in Vietnam. For comparison: before the tariff debate began, the import fee for products from Vietnam to the USA was only 4 percent.
“Great honor” for Trump
According to Trump, the deal is a great success, as Vietnam itself will accept products from the USA at 0 percent duty. “It is a great honor to announce that I have just signed a trade agreement with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,” Trump said on his social network Truth Social.
As usual, the US government said that “Vietnam will pay”. However, the duty is always paid by the importer, in this case Apple. This means that the total fee has increased fivefold. It is still unclear whether the iPhone manufacturer will increase its prices as a result.
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