Trade, arms embargo confront President Obama in Vietnam

Dr Duong - the deputy director of Strategic Research Institute at the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam (DAV)

“There have already been significant economic advances between Vietnam and the US over the past two decades since diplomatic ties were established in 1995,” said Dr Nguyen Nam Duong, in a recent interview granted a VOV reporter in the lead up to Mr Obama’s visit.

As a result, said Dr Duong, who is the deputy director of Strategic Research Institute at the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam, trade and investment between the two sides has blossomed.

Exports of Vietnam to the US, driven in large part by the ability of the country to attract foreign capital, now exceeds that of any other ASEAN member nation, he said, while US exports to Vietnam are poised to see further exponential growth.

Vietnam is one of the dozen signatories to the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), giving it a trade advantage over most other nations in ASEAN such as Indonesia and Thailand, who are not a part of the trade deal.

“The Trans-Pacific Partnership is the golden key to helping Vietnam begin a new chapter in its efforts to become a middle-income country and move away from the dominating influence of China,” said Dr Duong.

However, the TPP faces legislative hurdles in getting approved by the US Congress this year, and there is still a great deal of work to do before it is finalized, formally agreed to and comes into force.

Arms embargo

The Vietnam government wants the trade relationship to widen expansively and include a complete lifting of the embargo on arms shipments by the US that has been imposed since the end of the war.

Dr Duong said “the complete removal of the lethal weapons ban would be a vivid symbol the comprehensive partnership between the two countries has matured and is now stable.”

The US in October 2014 partially lifted its three-decade ban on lethal arms sales to the Southeast Asian nation, allowing what was termed “the future transfer of maritime security-related” hardware.

On the heels of that partial lifting, late last year, the US government provided US$18 million of funding for an American contractor to construct a pair of 22-metre-long aluminium patrol boats for Vietnam's coast guard.

Continuing the embargo would show bilateral ties are still highly constrained, said Dr Duong.

Vietnam Ambassador to the US, Pham Quang Vinh, earlier this month, told an audience in Texas at a summit on the Vietnam War, the lethal weapons ban is a “barrier of the past” that should be removed.

Ambassador Vinh underscored the point that he believes it is vitally important to remove the prohibition to fully achieve normalized relations and achieve a true strategic partnership with equal distribution of power.

US Defence Secretary Ash Carter has on a number of occasions said he supports a total revocation of the ban on the sale of weaponry to Vietnam and recently said as much before the US Senate Armed Services Committee.