The U.S. is helping Vietnam build a chip industry designed to replace that of China.
On February 20, President Donald Trump said he would remove Vietnam from a strategic export control list that blocks the country from buying advanced technology from U.S. companies. Trump also reaffirmed Washington’s commitment to a “strong, independent, self-reliant, and prosperous” Vietnam.
Vietnam has sat on the restricted lists — along with China, Russia, and North Korea — since the Cold War. The removal would clear the way for Vietnam to move beyond assembling and packaging chips to manufacturing them, repositioning it as a chip industry partner for the U.S.
“For the semiconductor supply chain, this decision signals a transition for Vietnam from a back-end assembly hub to an upstream manufacturing and design partner,” Sujai Shivakumar, director of the Renewing American Innovation project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank, told Rest of World. “The U.S. is clearing the path for Hanoi to acquire high-end American tools and software essential for advanced chipmaking.”
The Joe Biden administration elevated Vietnam to a comprehensive strategic partnership in 2023. Trump has continued where Biden left off.
The U.S. is clearing the path for Hanoi to acquire high-end American tools.”
“Each time I come back, I am genuinely impressed by the progress you have made,” John Neuffer, president of the Washington-based Semiconductor Industry Association, told Vietnamese officials during a January visit to Hanoi to attend a chip conference. He named Intel, Samsung, Qualcomm, Amkor, and Marvell as SIA members already on the ground in Vietnam.
To Lam, Vietnam’s top leader, flew to Washington on February 20 and secured Trump’s promise to remove the country from export control lists. Five weeks earlier, he had attended a groundbreaking ceremony in Hanoi for Vietnam’s first domestically owned chip fabrication plant.
Run by state-owned giant Viettel, the facility aims to start trial production by late 2027, making 32-nanometer chips, the kind that power cars, telecom networks, and industrial equipment. Rather than chase the most advanced chips, now made at 2 or 3 nanometers, Vietnam is focused on building an industry from scratch.
The Viettel plant was part of a wider blitz. On January 15, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh met Eduard Stiphout, a senior vice president at ASML, the Dutch company that makes the machines needed to produce advanced chips. The U.S. has pressured the Netherlands to stop selling ASML’s most powerful equipment to China, making the meeting a pointed signal from Hanoi.
Two days later, Finance Minister Nguyen Van Thang held a separate meeting with the same ASML delegation, discussing a training center and an official company presence in Vietnam. The speed of the run-up, from breaking ground to ASML meetings to a White House sit-down, suggested a coordinated campaign timed to give To Lam maximum leverage in Washington.
Vietnam has about 7,000 chip engineers today and wants 50,000 by 2030, according to government targets. Qualcomm has opened its third-largest global research center in the country, and Amkor has invested $1.6 billion in a packaging plant, its largest anywhere. Analysts expect the country’s share of global chip packaging to rise to almost 9% by 2032 from 1% in 2022.
While the chip commitment was one of several deals struck during To Lam’s Washington visit, it was the one with the longest horizon. Building a chip industry takes decades of investment, training, and infrastructure.
“The move reflects Washington’s effort to position Vietnam as a key Indo-Pacific counterweight to China,” Shivakumar said.
For the U.S., Vietnam is about building alternatives to China, and for Vietnam, it is about winning a seat at the table of the world’s most valuable industry. Every country caught between Washington and Beijing is now studying Hanoi’s move, wondering how to make one of its own.
