Chinese President Xi Jinping sought stronger trade ties with neighboring Vietnam at the start of a five-day swing through Southeast Asia where Beijing presents itself as a source of economic stability amid uncertainty over U.S. tariffs.
Xi was welcomed in Hanoi on Monday by Vietnam’s top leader To Lam. He also held talks with Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh. The two countries signed 45 agreements including on enhancing supply chains and on cooperation over railways, Reuters reported.
In an editorial published in state media, Xi called for the two communist neighbors to “resolutely safeguard the multilateral trading system, stable global industrial and supply chains, and open and cooperative international environment.”
“There are no winners in a trade war, or a tariff war,” he wrote.
His visit comes as Beijing faces 145% U.S. duties and shows little sign of backing down on its own retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods despite the impact the standoff will have on an export-dependent Chinese economy.
Vietnam, meanwhile, is negotiating with the Trump administration to forestall U.S. tariffs of 46% taking effect in July.
Vietnam ran the third-largest trade surplus with the United States in 2024, only behind China and Mexico. Vietnam is under pressure from Washington to ensure that goods originating in China aren’t just transshipped through Vietnam.
Trump views tariffs as a means to boost U.S. revenues and incentivize American manufacturers. U.S. officials have long accused China of massive state subsidies of domestic companies.
Critics, however, say the sudden imposition of tariffs and uncertainty over the direction of U.S. policy could trigger not just a trade war but a recession.
A commentary in the Chinese communist party mouthpiece, China Daily, described Xi’s Southeast Asia tour as “providing more certainty for regional economic development amid the chaos brought by the United States’ launch of a tariff war.”
Xi is making his second visit to Vietnam in two years. He travels later this week to Malaysia and Cambodia.
Ahead of Xi’s two-day stop in Hanoi, Vietnamese authorities stepped up surveillance of local dissidents and their families.
Do Thi Thu, wife of incarcerated land rights activist Trinh Ba Phuong, said a Hanoi police investigator called her last Thursday then visited her at her house in person, inquired after her family and suddenly asked: “President Xi Jinping is coming to Vietnam. Are you going anywhere?”
On Monday, she said that police took turns guarding in front of her house. “Two people in the morning, two people at noon, one person in the afternoon, and one more person in the evening,” she told RFA Vietnamese.