The United States on Monday announced the end of the arms embargo on Vietnam.
President Obama said from Hanoi that the decision was made “to complete what has been a lengthy process towards moving toward normalization with Vietnam,” according to The Guardian. The bilateral detente comes amid tension between China and a handful of its neighbors over Beijing’s territorial claims in the South China Sea.
“At this stage both sides have developed a level of trust and cooperation,” Obama said at a press conference alongside Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang.
The US propped up a pro-Western government in South Vietnam and directly fought communist forces in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia between 1965-1975. Up to 2 million civilians were killed in the intervention, and more than 58,000 US troops and 1 million North Vietnamese soldiers were fatally wounded in combat.
“At this stage both sides have developed a level of trust and cooperation, including between our militaries, that is reflective of common interests and mutual respect,” Obama said.
Arms sales to Vietnam will now be reviewed by US officials on “a case-by-cases basis,” according to Fox News. The ban was imposed under the Reagan Administration in 1984. It was partially rolled back in 2014.
Recent land claims by the Chinese government in the South China Sea have brought into focus US relations with other countries in the region. US diplomats and their counterparts in Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia have protested China’s establishment in recent years of military installations on small islands; some more than 1,000 miles away from China’s coastline.
The Guardian noted that the body of water ferries some $4.5 trillion in trade, and it is believed to play host to “significant oil and gas reserves.”
Late last year, the Obama administration announced it would publicly challenge Chinese claims with warships and aircraft by openly treating adjacent space as international territory. The maneuvers came after some public needling by Senate Armed Services Committee chair John McCain (R-Ariz.).
Last week, the US military accused two Chinese fighter jets of conducting an “unsafe” intercept of a US spy plane over the South China Sea. The Chinese government denied that its pilots flew aggressively, and responded by asking Washington to stop conducting surveillance missions so close to its mainland.
President Obama also on Monday touted another milestone of US-Vietnam normalization; one brought about by the nominally-communist country’s decision to court corporate investment. The President praised the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the twelve-country trade deal still waiting approval in national legislatures around the world. Vietnam is a party, while China is not.
Controversial in the US due to the impact of past trade deals, the TPP isn’t even expected to get a vote before the November election. It has been criticized, to a warm reception from the public, by both Republican and Democratic primary candidates–most notably Donald Trump and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
A laissez-faire approach under the Reagan administration saw trade deficits balloon and wages stagnate as manufacturing jobs moved to countries with boss-friendly labor and environmental rules. The trade deficit widened and de-industrialization subsequently accelerated, with the US having joined a number of free trade deals under both Republican and Democratic administrations.
“The politics of it will be noisy” Obama said Monday, of the TPP, noting the same was true for past trade deals. “But we got them done.”
