US imports from Vietnam largely match Vietnam imports from China
Vietnam has huge trade surplus with US, relies on China input
Vietnam is most sanctioned country in US over Xinjiang ban

HANOI, May 16 Reuters As the United States intensifies efforts to reduce trade with China by hiking tariffs, it has greatly boosted imports from Vietnam, which relies on Chinese input for much of its exports, data show.

The surge in the ChinaVietnamU.S. trade has vastly widened trade imbalances, with the Southeast Asian country last year posting a surplus with Washington close to 105 billion 2.5 times bigger than in 2018 when the Trump administration first put heavy tariffs on Chinese goods.

Vietnam now has the fourthhighest trade surplus with the United States, lower only than China, Mexico and the European Union.

The increasingly symbiotic relationship emerges from trade, customs and investment data reviewed by Reuters from the United Nations, the U.S., Vietnam and China, and is confirmed by preliminary estimates from the World Bank and half a dozen economists and supply chains experts.

It shows that Vietnam39;s export boom has been fuelled by imports from neighbouring China, with inflows from China almost exactly matching the value and swings of exports to the United States in recent years.

In preliminary estimates shared with Reuters, the World Bank reckons a 96 correlation between the two flows, up from 84 before Donald Trump39;s presidency.

The surge in Chinese imports in…