Vietnam scrambled to offer no tax on U.S. imports after President Donald Trump hit the country with 46% tariffs, but that move wasn't enough for Trump trade counselor Peter Navarro, who accused it of “cheating” and increased the expectations for countries targeted by new tariffs.
Navarro, Trump’s senior counselor for trade and manufacturing, said in an interview with CNBC Monday that the country’s offer “means nothing.”
“Let’s take Vietnam. When they come to us and say ‘we’ll go to zero tariffs,’ that means nothing to us because it’s the non-tariff cheating that matters,” he said.
Navarro said that the alleged “non-tariff cheating” he referred to included letting China route its exports through a country to avoid tariffs, stealing intellectual property, and levying a value-added tax (VAT) on products.
Later, Navarro added that among the many problems the administration sees with its trading partners are export subsidies, currency manipulation, and “phony” technical and safety barriers for U.S. agricultural products.
“They all cheat us in a different way,” he said.
Fifty countries have already reached out to negotiate tariff agreements with the White House, Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, told Fox News Monday. And while Navarro said Trump would listen to any offers, the president has stood firm on last week’s “liberation day” tariffs so far.
On Monday, Trump threatened China with 50% additional tariffs if it did not drop its retaliatory tariffs on U.S. imports.
While Navarro argued that the Trump administration wants to restore “fairness” to global trade, he also seemingly moved the goalposts for negotiating countries by emphasizing “non-tariff barriers” over foreign tariff policies. Eliminating many of these policies, such as VATs, would require major domestic changes in the target countries.
He called Vietnam and other countries’ offer of 0% tariffs on U.S. imports “a small first start.”
“This zero tariff thing, it's a misdirection,” he added.
Trump’s tariffs paired with a tax cut the administration is reportedly planning will help American workers, Navarro claimed.
Meanwhile, the stock market has plummeted on the tariff news, losing $6.6. trillion in value last week. On Monday afternoon stocks saw some relief but were still shaken. The tech-heavy Nasdaq was up less than 1% while the benchmark S&P 500 index was down 0.2%. The Dow Jones was down 1%.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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