The US government is exerting pressure on neighboring countries of China to take measures, focusing on cracking down on the behavior of Chinese goods circumventing exports to the US through these countries as processing origins.
A Vietnamese government document obtained by Reuters shows that the country's Ministry of Industry and Trade issued an instruction on April 15th, requiring a strict crackdown on illegal transshipment of goods to trade partners such as the US, in order to avoid being subject to high tariffs by the US. Vietnam's largest import trading partner is China, while its main export destination is the US, which has accused a large amount of Chinese goods of being illegally transferred via Vietnam.
The document also points out that new and stricter procedures will be implemented to inspect factories and supervise the issuance of "Made in Vietnam" labels, especially for enterprises with a sudden increase in applications for origin certificates. The document also instructs officials to "introduce specific measures to prevent illegal transshipments when necessary."
Almost simultaneously, South Korea's National Tax Service said on Monday that it had discovered an increasing number of foreign products attempting to disguise themselves as Korean exports, with most of them coming from China, in order to avoid the tariff measures imposed by US President Trump.
Reuters reported that similar origin-washing behaviors exist in Southeast Asia and South Korea.
Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/1830126510331968/
Disclaimer: This article solely represents the author's viewpoint.