Vietnam Grows Wood Exports but Loses Ground in Its Biggest Market

Seven months of shipments have reached 10.2 billion dollars, with American commissioners voting on the same day to make antidumping duties on Vietnamese hardwood plywood permanent.

Workers assemble furniture components at a Vietnamese plant, the higher-value trade that fell 2.3 per cent to $6.4 billion over the seven months to July while chip and pellet exporters sold more. (Photo Credit: VNA/TTXVN)

Wood and wood product exports from Vietnam reached US$10.2 billion over the seven months to July, with the United States buying $5.09 billion of it, or half the national total. That is according to Vietnam’s Customs Department, which published the seven-month returns on Wednesday and ranked China second at $1.535 billion.

Three commissioners of the US International Trade Commission voted the same day that hardwood and decorative plywood from China, Indonesia, and Vietnam have materially injured American producers.

Commerce will now issue antidumping and countervailing duty orders against all three countries, more than five months after US Customs and Border Protection began collecting cash deposits at the border.

“A landmark win for American hardwood and decorative plywood producers,” Timothy Brightbill said, with the Wiley partner acting as counsel to the Coalition for Fair Trade in Hardwood Plywood. Columbia Forest Products, Commonwealth Plywood, Manthei Wood Products, States Industries, and Timber Products filed the petition on 22 May 2025.

Commerce settled Vietnam’s final antidumping margin at 90.12 per cent in July, more than halving the 196.14 per cent it had set at the preliminary stage, with China held at 187.27 per cent and most Indonesian suppliers at 18.10 per cent. Most Vietnamese producers pay a further 47.68 per cent in countervailing duties, and the orders cover only hardwood and decorative plywood, a trade the Vietnam Timber and Forest Products Association, known as VIFOREST, says is worth $400 million a year.

Commissioners also found imports of softwood structural plywood to be negligible and terminated all investigations covering it. Sheets stamped and certified to US structural standards escape the orders, while the hardwood and decorative plywood pressed in the same mills carry them.

Japan took $1.267 billion worth of Vietnamese wood over the same seven months, ahead of South Korea at $397 million, Canada at $176 million, and the United Kingdom at $156 million, while Australian buyers accounted for $94.4 million.

The United States bought $5.091 billion of Vietnamese wood over the seven months to July, more than three times China’s total and nearly half of everything the country shipped. (Graphic: Wood Central; Data: Vietnam Customs Department)

“Help the domestic industry and workers compete in a fairer market,” Stephanie Bell said, with the Wiley partner thanking the commissioners and staff who ran the investigations. Commerce can review the rates annually, and the firm warns that evasion, absorption, and circumvention are illegal.

Furniture makers sold less while chip and pellet exporters sold more, and VIFOREST says wood product exports, mostly interior and outdoor furniture, fell 2.3 per cent to $6.4 billion across the seven months. Shipments to the United States dropped by close to 6 per cent over the same period, and Ngô Sỹ Hoài, the association’s vice chairman and general secretary, identifies the instability of US trade policy as the largest single risk the industry now faces.

“The US is applying inconsistent tariff policies, whilst the EU market continues to struggle with economic slowdown,” Nguyen Quoc Khanh warned in March, with the VIFOREST chairman tying the government’s $25 billion target for 2030 to investment in greener production.

Several Vietnamese outlets have reported the seven-month total as a 56 per cent increase on the year, and Wood Central can reveal the Customs Department’s own returns record growth of 5.6 per cent. July alone accounted for $1.6 billion of that total, matching the monthly rate Vietnam ran at in January.

It comes as Indonesian producers, caught in the same case, watched shipments to the United States fall 60 per cent in the first quarter, with the country’s plywood exports down 26 per cent after the duties closed its largest market to them.

Vietnamese kitchen cabinets, dressing tables, and living room furniture already carry a 25 per cent tariff under Section 232, and Washington adds a further 12.5 per cent under a separate Section 301 investigation into forced labour and overcapacity. Donald Trump paused a 50 per cent Section 338 duty on Canadian plywood the night before the commission voted.

Source: https://woodcentral.com.au/vietnam-wood-exports-seven-months/