US and Vietnam sign landmark trade deal
WASHINGTON - The United States and Vietnam on Thursday signed a landmark trade agreement a quarter of a century after the end of the
Vietnam War, President Bill Clinton announced here.
"From the bitter past we plant the seeds of a better future," Mr Clinton said at a ceremony in the White House Rose Garden.
Four years in the making, the agreement will accord access to Vietnamese goods to the United States on the same terms as most other countries
in return for Hanoi's commitment to open its state-controlled markets to competition and foreign investment.
"The agreement we signed today will dramatically open Vietnam's markets on everything from agriculture to industrial goods to
telecommunications products while creating jobs both in Vietnam and the United States," Mr Clinton said.
The President praised Vietnam, where US forces in 1975 abandoned their bid to block a North Vietnamese-led Communist takeover of the
country, of having lately worked to join "the mainstream of South-east Asia."
With this agreement, he said, Vietnam has taken a giant step towards becoming part of the rules-based international trading system under a free
market economy.
"We hope expanded trade will go hand-in-hand with strengthened respect for human rights and labour standards," he added.
The President said incremental improvements in US-Vietnam ties since 1994 had depended on Vietnam's cooperation in determining the fate of
US service personnel listed as missing since the end of the war.
To underscore the link between the trade accord and Washington's determination to account for its missing in action, Mr Clinton was joined in
the Rose Garden by three US senators who had served in Vietnam -- John Kerry, Robert Kerrey and John McCain -- a former prisoner of war in
Hanoi.
Agence France Presse - July 14, 2000.
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