The United States’ adjustment of its approach to tax policy, particularly with regard to the Global Minimum Tax, is generating far-reaching impacts on the structure and operation of global supply chains. These changes not only affect major economies directly, but also pose new challenges for highly open economies such as Vietnam—especially as Vietnamese enterprises participate in supply chains serving the European Union (EU), including the Czech Republic.
The Global Minimum Tax and Supply Chain Fragmentation
The Global Minimum Tax (Pillar Two), initiated by the OECD/G20, is regarded as a significant step toward curbing profit shifting, preventing base erosion, and creating a fairer competitive environment among multinational corporations. In recent years, the EU has proactively developed roadmaps and completed legal frameworks to implement this mechanism in a relatively comprehensive manner.
In practice, however, there are notable differences in how major economies approach and implement the Global Minimum Tax. While sharing the objective of combating base erosion, the United States has opted for its own mechanism and implementation roadmap, aligned with domestic legal systems and policy priorities. This demonstrates that the Global Minimum Tax is not applied uniformly, but is strongly influenced by each country’s institutional context and national interests.
As a result, global supply chains are increasingly fragmenting along the “nationality of the parent company,” rather than operating under a unified tax framework. Multinational corporations headquartered in the United States enjoy greater flexibility in organizing production, allocating profits, and selecting investment locations, while enterprises in many other countries must comply fully and strictly with tax and compliance requirements.
Rising Pressure on Vietnamese Enterprises
This fragmentation goes beyond technical tax considerations and has profound implications for how costs, risks, and benefits are distributed across the entire supply chain—from production to final distribution in end markets such as the EU and the Czech Republic.
In the new context, as U.S. companies are not subject to the same additional tax obligations as those in the EU, tax-related benefits are largely retained at the parent-company level. Meanwhile, increasingly stringent EU requirements related to environmental and social standards, traceability, supply chain transparency, and technical compliance continue to be passed down to suppliers in third countries, including Vietnam.
As a result, many Vietnamese enterprises participating in the supply chains of U.S. multinationals in sectors such as electronics, textiles and garments, footwear, furniture, precision engineering, and processed agricultural products are facing growing cost pressures, while their ability to raise prices or improve profit margins remains limited.
Previously, Vietnam was often regarded as a cost-competitive manufacturing base with a relatively neutral position in EU-oriented supply chains. However, as global supply chains are restructured with clearer segmentation, higher value-added activities tend to be retained in major economic centers, while labor-intensive and higher-risk production stages continue to be located in developing countries.
Without proactive efforts to upgrade their position in the value chain, Vietnamese enterprises risk becoming increasingly dependent on orders, easily replaceable, and highly vulnerable to global strategic adjustments by their partners.
The EU and the Czech Republic: Increasingly Stringent Standards
At the same time, the EU—including the Czech Republic—is implementing the Global Minimum Tax relatively comprehensively, alongside strengthening regulations related to sustainability, corporate responsibility, and supply chain governance.
As a key link in intra-EU supply chains, particularly in manufacturing, mechanical engineering, components, and technology-intensive industries, Czech enterprises are becoming more cautious in selecting and maintaining non-EU partners. Evaluation criteria are shifting away from cost and short-term production capacity toward long-term stability, information transparency, governance systems, traceability capabilities, and readiness to comply with medium- and long-term regulatory requirements.
This trend is having a direct impact on cooperation between Vietnamese and Czech enterprises within EU-oriented supply chains.
Proactive Adaptation for Sustainable Integration
The analysis shows that the U.S. adjustment of its approach to the Global Minimum Tax is not merely a tax issue, but a factor that is reshaping the global supply chain landscape.
For Vietnamese enterprises, the challenge is no longer limited to fulfilling orders or maintaining cost advantages. Instead, the focus must shift toward strengthening corporate governance, enhancing financial transparency, complying with international standards, and gradually moving deeper into higher value-added segments such as design, engineering, quality management, and technology. At the same time, diversifying partners and export markets has become essential to reduce dependence on a single supply chain or group of partners.
From a policy perspective, Vietnam needs to closely monitor international developments, particularly the implementation and adjustment of the Global Minimum Tax in major economies, in order to proactively develop appropriate response strategies. Effective coordination between tax policy and other support measures—such as infrastructure development, workforce upskilling, innovation promotion, and assistance for improving compliance capacity—will be critical.
The U.S. tax policy adjustment reflects broader shifts in global trade and a trend toward more clearly stratified supply chain restructuring. For Vietnam, this represents both a challenge and an opportunity to accelerate economic restructuring, improve growth quality, and gradually enhance the position of Vietnamese enterprises within global value chains, paving the way for effective and sustainable integration in the new context.
