USA TODAY International Edition
Obama ends U. S. arms embargo on Vietnam
Signals breakthrough in mending relations
President Obama lifted a decades- long American arms embargo on Vietnam on Monday and touted a new friendship with the United States’ former enemy.
“Just a generation ago, we were adversaries and now we are friends,” Obama said during a news conference in Hanoi with Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang 41 years after the end of the Vietnam War.
Obama also predicted eventual passage of another element of the emerging American- Vietnamese relationship: the TransPacific Partnership, the proposed 12- nation trade deal currently stalled in the U. S. Congress. Vietnam is one of the member countries.
Other signs of cooperation between the former combatants include new business sales, more military cooperation, research programs involving universities in both countries and cultural exchanges that include the introduction of the U. S. Peace Corps to Vietnam, Obama said.
Obama, who arrived here Sunday night, was greeted by small but enthusiastic crowds at the airport and along the motorcade route to his hotel. The capital city of narrow alleys and wide colonial- era boulevards closed 30 streets Monday for the presi- dent’s visit, creating a chaotic traffic snarl.
As Obama made the rounds, from a welcoming ceremony at the presidential palace to meetings with Vietnam’s top government officials, he remained a popular topic of discussion among Vietnamese.
Le Van Mai, 84, said Obama’s visit signaled a new era in relations between the former enemies. “The war is in the past now and everything is fresh between Vietnam and the U. S.,” Mai said. Obama’s “visit can show the bond between the two countries.”
“Our country has moved on. We agree that we want to ease the past and embrace unity between Vietnam and the U. S.” Le Van Mai, 84, Hanoi resident
Mai said he fought as a soldier not against the U. S. but the French, who retreated from Vietnam in 1954 after a crushing defeat at Dien Bien Phu. He lived in Hanoi during the Vietnam War and recalled the bombing and suffering the Vietnamese endured. Yet all that is in the past, he added: “Our country has moved on. We agree that we want to ease the past and embrace unity between Vietnam and the U. S.”
Accounting student Nguyen Thi Tu Trinh, 18, said she’s proud Obama is visiting her country. “I think the U. S. and Vietnam should be closer and cooperate in so many aspects,” she said.
Young Vietnamese are as Internet- savvy as their peers around the world, and Trinh said she has been following the president’s visit on the local news and via social media, where friends posted their photos of sightings of Obama’s motorcade around the city.
As word of the president’s announcement that he was lifting the arms embargo spread, some residents welcomed the gesture in light of a contentious relationship with giant neighbor China, which is engaged in a territorial dispute with Vietnam in the South China Sea.
“Like everyone else, I don’t want any conflict” said Nguyen Dinh Toan, 63, who drives one of the ubiquitous motorbike taxis known as xe om. “But if the U. S. can help us, that would be good. It’s a big leap for both countries. I want the bond to be strengthened even more.”
After a morning meeting with Vietnam’s president, Obama signed a series of bilateral agreements, including the $ 11 billion purchase of 100 Boeing 737 aircraft by Vietnamese airline Vietjet Air.
Obama then met with the recently elected chairwoman of Vietnam’s National Assembly, Nyguyen Thi Kim Ngan, at a rustic stilt house on the grounds of the presidential palace that was used as a residence by Ho Chi Minh, the iconic communist leader and president of former North Vietnam.