President Joe Biden closed a visit to Vietnam on Monday by spotlighting new business deals and partnerships between the two countries and paying respects at a memorial honoring his late friend and colleague Sen. John McCain, who endured a lengthy imprisonment in Hanoi during the Vietnam War.
Biden met with Prime Minister Phạm Minh Chính, who also accompanied Biden to a quick drop by at a meeting of business leaders. Biden also sat down with President Võ Văn Thưởng, who hosted the U.S. president for a formal state luncheon. The two sides are looking to strengthen their partnership amid shared concerns about China’s assertiveness in the Pacific.
Both leaders spoke about strengthening Vietnam’s semiconductor industry. Biden made clear his administration’s commitment to an open Pacific.
“My message today is quite simple. Let’s keep it up,” Biden told the CEOs. “We need to develop and drive our collaboration, We need to forge new partnerships.”
The prime minister also stressed the need to improve cooperation and said “the sky is the limit” for the expanding U.S.-Vietnam relationship.
Highlights of the major deals announced by the White House during Biden’s first-ever visit to Vietnam include U.S.-based Boeing’s $7.5 billion deal with Vietnam Airlines to buy about 50 aircraft and Arizona-based Amkor Technology’s plans for a $1.6 billion factory in Bac Ninh Province.
The White House also said the administration would help “build Vietnamese capacity to fight regional and international transnational crime,” including targeting illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. China has been locked in long-running territorial conflicts with Vietnam, along with the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei, as Beijing claims waters in the other nations’ exclusive economic zone.
Biden arrived in Vietnam on Sunday and met with Nguyễn Phú Trong, general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam. Trong formally announced Vietnam had elevated the U.S. to its highest diplomatic status, comprehensive strategic partner. Biden said the shift demonstrated how far bilateral relations had evolved from the “bitter past” of the Vietnam War.
At the same time, Biden insisted that his roughly 24-hour visit was not about trying to start a “cold war” with China but was part of a broader effort to improve global stability by building relationships throughout Asia, including with Vietnam, at a time of tensions with Beijing.
Before departing, Biden visited the John Sidney McCain III Memorial near the site where, as a 31-year-old Navy lieutenant commander, McCain’s Skyhawk dive bomber was shot down by the North Vietnamese. Both sides exchanged documents Monday on unaccounted U.S. service members and Vietnamese soldiers. Biden left one of his commemorative coins at the memorial, the White House said.
McCain parachuted out of the plane and landed in a lake in Hanoi, North Vietnam. He broke both arms and a leg in the fall, was dragged from the water by an angry crowd, and was beaten and bayoneted.
