US, Vietnam to hold new round of trade talks by end of next week, Hanoi says

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HANOI (Reuters) -The United States and Vietnam will hold a new round of trade talks by the end of next week, the Vietnamese trade ministry said on Thursday, after Hanoi submitted a document responding to U.S. trade requests.

Authorities did not say when and where precisely the third round of talks will take place, as pressure mounts on both sides to find a compromise before a pause on 46% “reciprocal” tariffs on Vietnam exports expires in early July.

The statement came after Vietnamese trade minister Nguyen Hong Dien and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer met in Paris on Wednesday, Hanoi said, and agreed to accelerate technical talks ahead of the third round of negotiations “scheduled to be held in the first half of June.”

The ministry and USTR did not immediately reply to questions about the precise dates for next talks and the expected outcomes.

U.S. negotiators have sent a long list of requests to Hanoi, which Vietnamese officials have described as “tough,” including measures that could effectively reduce Vietnam’s reliance on imports from China of materials and components, Reuters reported earlier this week.

The ministry said it had replied to Washington’s requests but did not disclose what it had proposed.

The Trump administration wanted countries to provide their best offers on trade negotiations by Wednesday as officials sought to accelerate talks with multiple partners ahead of the self-imposed deadline in just five weeks.

Vietnam expressed its “determination and goodwill” in finding common positions on pending issues, its Ministry of Industry and Trade said in the statement posted on its portal on Thursday. It did not elaborate about what still needed to be agreed.

The Southeast Asian industrial hub relies on exports to the U.S., its top market, and at the same time on imports of industrial goods from China, which are assembled in Vietnam before exports.

At the meeting in Paris, Dien and Greer “agreed to speed up the negotiation process, focusing maximum efforts to achieve the best results in the third round of negotiations,” the Vietnam trade ministry statement said.

Under U.S. pressure, Hanoi has launched a crackdown on illegal transhipment of goods, mostly from China. It has also repeatedly shown its willingness to reduce non-tariff barriers and to import more U.S. goods, including U.S. planes, farm products and energy, although no purchase contracts have been announced yet.

(Reporting by Khanh Vu and Francesco Guarascio; Editing by Jacqueline Wong and Sonali Paul)