If the US imposes a 20% tax, how will agricultural, forestry and fishery exports be affected?

At the regular press conference of the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment held on July 3, Mr. Tran Gia Long - Deputy Director of the Department of Planning and Finance - said that to proactively respond to the US's reciprocal tax, the Ministry has developed three scenarios for growth and export of agricultural, forestry and fishery products.

Three scenarios for exporting agricultural, forestry and fishery products

Firstly, if the US imposes a 10% reciprocal tax on Vietnam's agricultural, forestry and fishery products, the export turnover will basically not be affected much, and the industry's growth will still be at 4%.

Second, if the US imposes a 20% reciprocal tax, total export turnover in the last 6 months of the year will decrease by 20%, equivalent to a decrease of about 6.2-6.5 billion USD, a decrease of 0.15-0.2 percentage points of growth (growth will reach about 3.85%).

Third, in the worst case, if the US imposes a 46% tax, agricultural, forestry and fishery exports in the last 6 months of the year will decrease by about 12.3 billion USD.

Mr. Tran Dinh Luan - Director of the Department of Fisheries and Fisheries Control - said that Vietnam's seafood exports will be affected if the US imposes reciprocal tariffs, especially on key products such as shrimp, tra fish, and tuna. However, because the specific tax rates are not yet clear, the unit cannot assess the impact in detail.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment, the export turnover of agricultural, forestry and fishery products in the first 6 months of 2025 reached 33.84 billion USD. USD, up more than 15% over the same period last year. Trade surplus reached 9.83 billion USD.

Of which, the export value of agricultural products reached 18.46 billion USD (up nearly 18%), seafood exports reached 5.16 billion USD (up 17%), forestry exports reached 8.82 billion USD (up more than 9%),...

The US is still Vietnam's largest agricultural, forestry and fishery export market, accounting for 21.1% of the market share, followed by China with a market share of 17.6% and Japan with a market share of 7.2%.

Coffee exports increase sharply, estimated to earn 7.5 billion USD for the whole year

In the first 6 months of the year, exports of agricultural products such as coffee, pepper, and cashew nuts all grew by double digits compared to the same period last year.

The strongest increase was in coffee, with the average export price in the first 6 months of the year reaching 5,708 USD/ton (up 59% compared to the same period in 2024). Thanks to that, we earned up to 5.45 billion USD (up 67.5% and the same value as the whole year of 2024) even though we only sold about 950,000 tons of coffee. The Ministry of Agriculture and Environment estimated that coffee exports this year will earn about 7.5 billion USD.

In contrast, fruit and vegetable exports only reached 3.05 billion USD, down 8.4% compared to the same period last year. The reason is that China's imports decreased by 35% compared to the same period last year.

Rice exports also only reached 2.54 billion USD (down 12.2%) despite selling 7.6% more volume (4.9 million tons). The reason is that the average export price of rice in the first 6 months of 2025 is estimated at 517.5 USD/ton, down more than 18% compared to the same period in 2024.

Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Environment Phung Duc Tien said the Ministry has just issued a specific plan to promote the export of agricultural, forestry and fishery products in the last 6 months of the year to achieve the target of 65 billion USD, striving to reach 70 billion USD.

The Ministry has assigned specific tasks and requested drastic actions to maintain exports in traditional markets.

At the same time, actively negotiate and supplement suitable product lines, supplement some product groups that can increase export value in potential markets, such as seafood to China, Japan, Korea, ASEAN; spices, fresh fruits to Korea, Japan, ASEAN; coffee to China, Japan, ASEAN,...