US Tariffs Threaten to Crush Vietnam's Factory Boom Towns

Jobs, Businesses at Risk in Binh Duong Province That Built Its Fortunes on Exports

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HANOI - Vietnamese furniture exporter Paul Yang is in a 90-day race.

The vice-president of a factory that makes indoor wood furnishings for the likes of Williams Sonoma and Crate & Barrel Holdings is being urged by American customers to ship "anything that's ready" to them in the window of normalcy President Donald Trump granted before the risk of punishingly high tariffs hits Vietnamese products exported to the US.

It may be the last opportunity to secure revenue from a customer base that buys goods equivalent to over a quarter of Vietnam's US$400 billion (S$525 billion) economy if the nation does not secure a deal before Mr. Trump's grace period ends.

Nowhere is the perilous situation felt more deeply than in Vietnam's southern industrial province Binh Duong.

With almost half of the US$34.5 billion of goods exported out of Binh Duong in 2024 shipped to the US, the region is especially vulnerable to tariff shocks.

"I've had so many video calls with my customers," said Mr. Yang, vice-president of Yang Cheng Wooden Industries International (Vietnam).

Last week, he was fretting about 200 containers of furniture worth US$4 million stuck in warehouses and at a port after US customers told him to freeze shipments following Mr. Trump's threat to slap a 46 per cent tariff on Vietnamese goods.

Binh Duong saw export orders worth more than US$708 million get canceled over four days before the 46 per cent tariff was to land, government data showed.

More than 270 US orders for products ranging from shoes to electronics were scrapped, and another 175 were at risk, it said.

That data could change as US clients recalibrate amid the shifting tariff landscape.