HÀ NỘI — As Việt Nam’s deepening global integration fuels export opportunities, trade remedies are increasingly emerging as a critical tool to protect domestic production, requiring a shift from reactive responses to a more proactive and data-driven approach amid rising trade defence challenges.

Domestic trade remedy activities continued to be implemented proactively and systematically last year.

Authorities handled nine trade remedy investigations carried over from the previous year, completing eight cases. At the same time, they initiated six review investigations, including four sunset reviews and two annual reviews.

In addition, three new investigations were launched, including investigations into new products and cases involving circumvention of trade remedy measures.

To date, Việt Nam has applied a total of 48 trade remedy measures, of which 37 remain in force. These measures have been assessed and were found to have delivered effectively, protecting an estimated VNĐ600 trillion (US$23 billion) in revenue for domestic enterprises, creating jobs for more than 56,000 direct workers and hundreds of thousands of indirect workers, and contributing over VNĐ1.5 trillion to the State budget.

These figures demonstrate that trade remedies have become a key pillar of Việt Nam’s domestic production protection policy, helping maintain the competitiveness of Vietnamese enterprises in the home market.

Conversely, Việt Nam’s exports faced 21 new trade remedy cases initiated by 11 different markets last year.

These cases both increased in number and became more complex in investigative scope, with new issues emerging, such as cross-border subsidies.

The US continued to be the market initiating the most investigations, with seven cases, accounting for approximately 33 per cent of the total. The steel sector was the most heavily affected, with nine new cases, equivalent to 43 per cent.

However, with the support of specialised authorities, more than 50 per cent of the cases achieved positive outcomes last year, helping enterprises avoid the imposition of duties or reduce the rates of duties imposed.

In 2026, the trend of trade protectionism is forecast to continue intensifying, requiring trade remedy efforts to be elevated to a new level.

Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyễn Sinh Nhật Tân has instructed the Trade Remedies Authority of Việt Nam to review, propose amendments to and improve the Law on Foreign Trade Management to create a more comprehensive, flexible, and practical legal framework suitable for deep international integration.

At the same time, trade remedies must strengthen their role in protecting domestic production from a defensive perspective as well as through the detection and prevention of circumvention practices and the balanced handling of exemption requests.

In particular, communication and awareness-raising for enterprises must be identified as a key task, helping businesses clearly understand that trade remedies are not only the responsibility of State authorities, but are also among their own direct rights and obligations.

A notable step forward is the Ministry of Industry and Trade’s approval of the project to build a database of domestic manufacturing industries for the 2025–2030 period.

The project aims to establish a comprehensive data system to support investigations, monitoring and evaluation of the effectiveness of trade remedy measures.

According to the roadmap, databases for at least five key manufacturing sectors will be completed by 2026, along with the issuance of detailed guidance on data establishment, operation and sharing.

By 2030, the system will expand to 20 sectors and strengthen data connectivity between regulatory agencies and enterprises.

The shift from case-by-case handling to data-driven forecasting and prevention is considered an inevitable direction, enabling Việt Nam’s trade remedy system to keep pace with the growing complexity of global trade.

In this context, the proactivity of enterprises, along with a robust legal and data framework, will be the decisive factor allowing Việt Nam to withstand waves of protectionism and effectively capitalise on integration opportunities in the next few years. — VNS