Vietnam launches fresh crackdown on online piracy under threat of US tariffs

HANOI – Vietnam is set to launch from May 7 a new crackdown on online piracy and counterfeit goods, aiming to boost detections by a fifth, the government said, after the US revived the prospect of fresh tariffs.

The US threat last week targets a “persistent failure” to tackle intellectual property violations by the South-east Asian nation, with which it has a multibillion-dollar trade surplus, larger even than China’s, so far in 2026, US data shows.

In response, Vietnam’s Prime Minister Le Minh Hung told ministries to boost detection of copyright infringement by at least 20 per cent in May, in a May 5 order published on the government’s online portal.

The Finance Ministry was told to “ensure that the number of cases of suspended Customs clearance procedures and subsequent processing increases by at least 20 per cent compared with (in) May 2025”.

The cases target imported shipments that yield clear evidence of counterfeit goods, the order said, without giving figures for previous violations.

The Trump administration has repeatedly urged Hanoi to rebalance trade ties and last week branded Vietnam as the world’s worst offender for intellectual property infringements, warning that it could open a tariff investigation by the end of May.

China is by far the main supplier of goods to Vietnam, with exports worth a record US$186 billion (S$237 billion) in 2025, Vietnam’s official data shows, while the US is its largest export market, with 2025 shipments worth US$153 billion.

Among the top items in such shipments are electronic goods, garments and footwear assembled by foreign multinationals and their suppliers using components and raw materials mostly from China.

Mr Hung also set an end-May deadline for a 20 per cent increase in the number of cases tackling copyright violations by computer programs, movies, music, TV shows and online video games, and for counterfeit goods sold at home.

Vietnam is a one-party communist state where prosecutors and the police have wide-ranging powers. Hanoi launched a similar crackdown in 2025, shortly after the Trump administration unveiled duties of 46 per cent on imports from Vietnam and later cut to 20 per cent in July 2025.

The duties were reduced further to 10 per cent in February 2026, after a US Supreme Court ruling struck down some of Mr Trump’s worldwide tariffs, though his administration has pledged to restore tariffs using different legal tools.

On April 30, the office of the US Trade Representative classified Vietnam as the only “priority foreign country” in its annual report on intellectual property.

That was the first such listing in 13 years in a category reserved for nations “with the most egregious IP-related acts, policies and practices with the greatest adverse impact on relevant US products”.

Research firm BMI’s analyst Heng Jian Xin said: “Vietnam’s newfound status as a priority foreign country for intellectual property infringements certainly increases the risk of the US government imposing higher trade barriers.”

After the US warning, Vietnam said it had made significant efforts to protect intellectual property and called for an “objective and balanced assessment” by Washington. REUTERS