As one of the main targets of Donald Trump’s threatened tariffs on Southeast Asia, Cambodia has scrambled to de-escalate trade tensions with the United States, but its drastic reduction of levies on American goods is not expected to placate Washington.
Amid a whirlwind week of announcements, the Trump administration initially slapped a 49 per cent tariff on Cambodian imports, only to reverse its decision days later, delaying the measures for all countries except China by 90 days.
The initial announcement prompted Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet to write to Trump, stating Phnom Penh’s willingness to slash import taxes on a selection of US goods, according to local media.
In the letter, which he later shared on social media, Hun Manet said that Cambodia would reduce tariffs on 19 American product categories from 35 to 5 per cent “in the spirit of strengthening our bilateral trade relations”.
“In this regard, I have also tasked my Minister of Commerce to correlate with the US Trade Representative,” the letter added.
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