At White House Meeting, the Ball is in Vietnam’s Court

By Phuong Ha

Phuong Ha is a Research Director at BowerGroupAsia (BGA). In her role, she analyzes government policies and impacts on the commercial environment in Vietnam. Prior to her current position, she conducted research in BGA's Hanoi office.

Today Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc will become the first ASEAN leader to visit the White House under the Trump administration. The meeting is a part of his first official trip to the U.S. after more than a year holding the premiership. Phuc’s visit continues a series of high-level bilateral meetings between U.S. and Vietnamese leaders over the past years – most recently, President Barack Obama’s three-day tour in Hanoi in 2016, where the lifting of the arms sales embargo marked a new high in the countries’ relationship.

Much has changed since then, and Prime Minister Phuc’s visit may be the start of an important turn in the two countries’ relationship due to its special timing. Meeting with President Donald Trump in the very early months of his presidency, Vietnam now has the chance to shape the dialogue with one of its key partners for the next four or eight years. The visit may also help Vietnam take the lead in ASEAN’s engagement with the U.S., which is particularly significant against the backdrop of an increasingly complex regional security and economic environment.

“The Cipher Brief has become the most popular outlet for former intelligence officers; no media outlet is even a close second to The Cipher Brief in terms of the number of articles published by formers.” —Sept. 2018, Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 62

Access all of The Cipher Brief’s national security-focused expert insight by becoming a Cipher Brief Subscriber+ Member.

Subscriber+

Categorized as:InternationalTagged with:

Related Articles

How Safe Would We Be Without Section 702?

SUBSCRIBER+EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW — A provision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that has generated controversy around fears of the potential for abuse has proven to be crucial […] More

Search

Close