Motorcyclists pass vendors selling food in a market at night in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, on Wednesday, June 20, 2018.

Vietnam could potentially benefit from the escalating China-U.S. trade war even as Washington continues to threaten Beijing with more tariffs, according to one investor.

The Southeast Asian nation could be a "winner" if a lot of foreign direct investment shifts into Vietnam due to rising cost pressures from the U.S.-China tariffs, Bill Stoops, the chief investment officer of Dragon Capital, told CNBC on Tuesday.

"Even China might start to shift a lot more of its production to Vietnam," Stoops said, so long as the move is not "zapped" by U.S. President Donald Trump.

"This is the sort of trend we could see," he added.

Vietnam is unlikely to be a target in the trade war, despite having a $40 billion trade surplus with the U.S., Stoops said. For Washington, it is "all about bashing China" for geostrategic and commercial reasons, he added.

Stoops said Vietnam's exports to America were "too low-end for the U.S. to even care."