Elevating supply chain quality, stepping up deep processing, and upgrading product value will serve as the key for Vietnamese goods to expand market shares in the United States market.

Vietnam - United States agricultural cooperation still possesses plenty of development room

Vietnam's agriculture, forestry, and fishery exports are maintaining a positive growth momentum, within which the United States continues to serve as one of the crucial markets. According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, agriculture, forestry, and fishery exports in the first 5 months of 2026 reached 30.69 billion USD, up 9.2% compared to the same period of the previous year. Previously, in the first 5 months of 2025, total agriculture, forestry, and fishery export turnover reached 28.04 billion USD, an increase of 15.1% compared to the same period of 2024, within which the United States market occupied an 18.5% market share.

In the reverse direction, Vietnam is also increasingly becoming an attractive market against United States agricultural products. In 2025, the export turnover of consumer agricultural products from the United States to Vietnam reached a record level of 1.2 billion USD, reflecting the increasingly expanding agricultural trade cooperation trend between the two nations.

Evaluating the cooperation potential between the two countries during an exchange with reporters from Cong Thuong Newspaper on the sidelines of the kickoff event for the campaign “US Products - Beyond First Class” organized by MM Mega Market Vietnam on the afternoon of July 9, Mr. Ralph Bean, Agricultural Counselor of the United States Embassy in Hanoi, argued that the agricultural relationship between Vietnam and the United States constitutes a multi-faceted relationship, not merely restricted to trade but also expanding into multiple other cooperation fields.

According to Mr. Ralph Bean, the two agricultural economies carry high complementarity. The United States supplies Vietnam with multiple products against which the domestic agricultural sector does not hold advantages, such as breeding animals, animal feed raw materials, and multiple other agricultural product types. Meanwhile, Vietnam owns signature tropical products such as coffee and multiple agricultural product types that the United States does not have.

Alongside trade, the United States is also deploying multiple programs supporting Vietnamese partners in agricultural development, encompassing capacity building, risk governance, and supply chain management.

Mr. Ralph Bean evaluated: "The potential to develop agricultural cooperation between the two nations is incredibly massive, and both sides possess plenty of opportunities to cooperate even more." Sharing solutions to raise the export turnover of Vietnamese agricultural products to the United States, Mr. Ralph Bean argued that the initial important thing is to continue promoting the foundations that Vietnam executed well over the past time.

Accordingly, the supply chain plays an exceptionally crucial role against agricultural products. Food preservation, particularly for agricultural products, decides product quality when reaching the hands of consumers in distant markets. In reality, Vietnam has supplied multiple high-quality agricultural products to the international market. That proves the capacity of Vietnamese enterprises in supply chain organization has been significantly improved. The necessary thing is to continue maintaining and elevating this capacity so that products, when reaching the hands of foreign consumers, still guarantee quality.

Besides, Vietnam also possesses a very massive advantage within the food processing field. Vietnam is owning good processing capacities against multiple imported agricultural raw materials as well as domestic agricultural products. This serves precisely as the foundation to develop high value-added products. Therefore, the counselor recommends that Vietnam should concentrate more on processed products aiming to elevate commodity value. High value-added products do not merely possess multiple opportunities to export to international markets but also better serve domestic consumption demands.

Retail chains and trade promotion serve as bridges bringing agricultural products to the market

According to Mr. Ralph Bean, for agricultural products to approach consumers efficiently, the role of retail systems is indispensable. Therefore, retail chains like MM Mega Market, along with multiple supermarket systems and convenience stores in Vietnam, are holding a very crucial role in bringing high-quality agricultural products to the hands of consumers.

Taking the United States cherry fruit as an example, for fresh and delicious products to retain full quality from United States farms to Vietnam demands very strict transportation and preservation protocols. Retailers serve precisely as the units guaranteeing a seamless cold supply chain, helping maintain product quality throughout the entire transportation process. In the reverse direction, retail channels in the host country can also become bridges bringing Vietnamese goods out to the world.

In parallel with that, the United States is also deploying multiple programs supporting Vietnam to elevate cold supply chain management capacities, helping manufacturers and retail enterprises possess additional knowledge aiming to guarantee agricultural product quality when brought to the hands of consumers.

From the perspective of a distribution enterprise, Mr. Nguyen Duc Toan, Chief Executive Officer of MM Mega Market Vietnam, affirmed that the retail system desires to play the role of a bridge driving agricultural trade cooperation between the two countries.

Within the framework of trade promotion activities, MM Mega Market Vietnam coordinated with the United States Embassy in Hanoi and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to organize the Opening Ceremony of the Event honoring the great agriculture of the United States. The program takes place from July 9 to 22, 2026, across 11 distribution centers of MM Mega Market nationwide, aiming to introduce high-quality agricultural and food products of the United States to Vietnamese consumers, while concurrently contributing to driving agricultural trade cooperation between the two nations.

According to Mr. Ralph Bean, over the past time, the United States has been permitted by the Vietnamese side to bring additional fruit types such as mandarins, peaches, and nectarines into the Vietnamese market. In the reverse direction, the United States also opened its doors to Vietnamese pomelos and expects to continue expanding additionally to multiple other items in the future.

These signals demonstrate that agricultural cooperation between Vietnam and the United States is continuing to expand in a mutually complementary direction. With a positive export growth foundation, alongside advantages in supply chains, processing capacities, and the companionship of distribution enterprises, Vietnamese agricultural products still possess plenty of room to increase their presence in the United States market in the coming time. The important thing is to continue maintaining quality, elevating added value, and promoting efficient trade promotion activities to better exploit the potential of one of the largest export markets of Vietnamese agricultural products.

To increase exports to the United States, Vietnamese enterprises need to continue promoting strengths regarding supply chains, guaranteeing agricultural product quality from raw material zones to the hands of consumers. Besides, it is crucial to utilize advantages regarding food processing, concentrating on developing high value-added products aiming to elevate competitive edge and expand export opportunities.

Source: Bao Cong Thuong