(b) TABLE OF CONTENTS.—The table of contents for 
this Act is as follows: 
Sec. 1. Short title; table of contents. 
Sec. 2. Findings. 
Sec. 3. Statement of policy. 
Sec. 4. Sanctions for human rights violations in Vietnam. 
Sec. 5. Actions to combat online censorship and surveillance in Vietnam. 
Sec. 6. International religious freedom. 
Sec. 7. Annual reports on United States-Vietnam human rights dialogue meet-
ings. 
Sec. 8. Definitions. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
Congress finds the following: 
(1) The relationship between the United States 
and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam has grown 
substantially since the end of the trade embargo in 
1994, with annual trade between the countries 
reaching $124,000,000,000 in 2023. 
(2) Expanded economic activity and trade be-
tween the United States and Vietnam, has not been 
matched by greater political freedom or substantial 
improvements in basic human rights for the people 
of Vietnam. 
(3) Vietnam remains an authoritarian state 
ruled by the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) 
which continues to expand cooperation with the 
Communist Party of China (CCP) for example re-
cently joining General Secretary Xi Jinping’s anti- 
United States ‘‘Community of Common Destiny’’. 
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(4) According to the Department of State, the 
Government of Vietnam engaged the arbitrary arrest 
of political activists and individuals who protested 
land seizures or other matters deemed politically 
sensitive and detained at least 187 persons for polit-
ical or human rights activism. 
SEC. 3. STATEMENT OF POLICY. 
It is the policy of the United States to— 
(1) embed human rights concerns across the 
full spectrum of official interactions between the 
Government of the United States and the Govern-
ment of Vietnam to convey the entire spectrum of 
United States interests in diplomatic engagement, 
including that concrete human rights improvements 
are key parts of trade, security, humanitarian co-
operation, and economic development; 
(2) assess Vietnam’s progress toward respecting 
the basic rights of workers, as described the report 
required by section 702 of the Foreign Relations Au-
thorization Act, Fiscal Year 2003 (Public Law 107– 
228; 22 U.S.C. 2151n note), to ensure that Amer-
ican workers are not disadvantaged by unfair labor 
practices in Vietnam, and press for Vietnam’s ratifi-
cation of ILO Conventions No. 87 (Freedom of As-
sociation and Protection of the Right to Organize) 
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and No. 98 (Right to Organize and Collective Bar-
gaining) and the recognition of independent labor 
unions; 
(3) bar from entry into the United States im-
ports from Vietnam that include inputs made with 
forced labor from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous 
Region, such as cotton, aluminum, polysilicon, rayon 
or other raw or finished materials identified by the 
Department of Homeland Security, per the Uyghur 
Forced Labor Prevention Act; and 
(4) to protect United States nationals and 
United States businesses by taking steps to address 
cyber-espionage and transnational repression efforts 
conducted by Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security. 
SEC. 4. SANCTIONS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN 
VIETNAM. 
(a) STATEMENT OF POLICY.—It is the policy of the 
United States to regularly assess reporting from intel-
ligence, diplomatic, open source, congressional, and non-
governmental organization sources to identify and impose 
travel and financial restrictions on officials of the Govern-
ment of Vietnam and other foreign persons working di-
rectly or indirectly for the Government of Vietnam who, 
based on credible evidence— 
(1) are— 
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(A) responsible for, ordered, or are 
complicit in the arbitrary detention, torture, en-
forced disappearances of individuals in Vietnam 
seeking to obtain, exercise, defend, or promote 
internationally recognized human rights; or 
(B) responsible for, ordered, or are 
complicit in acts of significant corruption, in-
cluding the expropriation of private or public 
assets for personal gain, corruption related to 
government contracts or the extraction of nat-
ural resources, bribery, or the facilitation or 
transfer of the proceeds of corruption to foreign 
jurisdictions; 
(2) are responsible for surveillance, censorship, 
or detention of individuals in Vietnam for exercising 
the right to the freedom of expression online or 
those responsible for forcing United States compa-
nies to censor or reveal personally identifiable infor-
mation of any individual exercising this right; or 
(3) are responsible for particularly severe viola-
tions of religious freedom (as such term is defined 
in section 3 of the International Religious Freedom 
Act of 1998 (22 U.S.C. 6402)). 
(b) SANCTIONS.— 
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(1) GLOBAL
MAGNITSKY
HUMAN
RIGHTS
AC-
COUNTABILITY ACT.—The President should impose 
sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Human 
Rights Accountability Act (22 U.S.C. 2656 note) 
with respect to any person described in subsection 
(a)(1). 
(2) DEPARTMENT OF STATE, FOREIGN OPER-
ATIONS, AND RELATED PROGRAMS APPROPRIATIONS 
ACT, 2019.—The Secretary of State should impose 
sanctions described in section 7031(c)(1)(A) of the 
Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Re-
lated Programs Appropriations Act, 2019 (division 
F of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2019; 
Public Law 116–6) with respect to any person de-
scribed in subsection (a)(2). 
(3) IMMIGRATION AND NATIONALITY ACT.—The 
Secretary of State should impose the sanctions de-
scribed in section 212(a)(2)(G) of the Immigration 
and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(2)(G)) to 
any foreign person described in subsection (a)(3). 
(c) REPORT.— 
(1) IN GENERAL.—The Secretary of State shall 
submit to the appropriate congressional committees 
a report on sanctions imposed on persons described 
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in subsection (a) under the provisions of law de-
scribed in subsection (b), including information on— 
(A) the number of times sanctions were 
imposed on such persons under such provisions 
of law; 
(B) the reasons for imposing such sanc-
tions; and 
(C) where appropriate, an identification of 
the sanctioned persons. 
(2) INCLUSION.—The report required by this 
subsection shall be submitted as part of the report 
required by section of the Foreign Relations Author-
ization Act, Fiscal Year 2003 (Public Law 107–228; 
22 U.S.C. 2151n note). 
SEC. 5. ACTIONS TO COMBAT ONLINE CENSORSHIP AND 
SURVEILLANCE IN VIETNAM. 
(a) FINDINGS.—Congress finds the following: 
(1) Vietnam continues to have one of the 
world’s most restrictive internet environments, with 
pervasive filtering of content and the frequent ar-
rests of bloggers and others whose only offense is to 
advocate online for positions different than those 
held by the government. 
(2) Since 2013, the Government of Vietnam has 
issued laws and decrees, including a cybersecurity 
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law, that increased its ability to surveil its citizens 
without judicial oversight or recourse. The cyberse-
curity law has been used to charge Vietnamese citi-
zens with vague crimes of ‘‘negating revolutionary 
achievements’’ and distributing ‘‘misleading informa-
tion among the people’’. Vietnam’s Penal Code and 
Decree 15 have also been used to render many legiti-
mate online activities illegal, leading to the arrest 
and detentions of political prisoners. 
(3) Vietnam has recently enacted Decree 147, 
a stringent internet regulation that took effect on 
December 25, 2024. Decree 147 significantly 
tightens governmental control over the internet in 
Vietnam, posing substantial threats to human rights 
and freedom of speech by enforcing user identifica-
tion, facilitating state surveillance, and enabling 
rapid censorship of online content. 
(4) The Government of Vietnam uses the cyber-
security law to require United States companies to 
store information in Vietnam, censor social media 
posts on demand, and to turn over sensitive personal 
information 
about 
users. 
Companies 
such 
as 
Facebook and Google comply with these requests, in-
cluding through the censorship of social media con-
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tent of United States citizens and permanent resi-
dent aliens. 
(5) United States companies Facebook and 
YouTube have been instrumental in this crackdown, 
complying with Vietnam’s request to censor and 
‘‘geoblock’’ content determined to violate local Viet-
namese law, which often contradicts international 
law and Vietnam’s treaty obligations. 
(6) In the first half of 2020, Facebook in-
creased its content restrictions in Vietnam by 983 
percent, a dramatic increase from the second half of 
2019. 
(7) Facebook complied with 90 percent of Viet-
nam’s censorship requests and YouTube with 95 
percent of such requests, a fact the Government of 
Vietnam noted with satisfaction. 
(8) As of December 31, 2023, the local legal 
provisions that directly enabled Facebook and 
YouTube’s censorship, Articles 117 and 331 of Viet-
nam’s Penal Code, were used to imprison most of 
the 258 prisoners of conscience. 
(9) A free and open internet and the free flow 
of news and information— 
(A) are fundamental components of United 
States foreign policy because they foster eco-
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nomic growth, protect individual liberties, and 
advance national security; 
(B) are critical to the advancement of both 
United States economic interests and inter-
nationally recognized human rights globally; 
and 
(C) are severely hindered by Vietnam’s cy-
bersecurity law which would allow the Govern-
ment of Vietnam to access private data, spy on 
users, require United States businesses to turn 
over personally identifiable information or block 
content of users, including outside of Vietnam, 
and further restrict already limited online 
speech. 
(b) STATEMENT OF POLICY.—It is the policy of the 
United States to— 
(1) pursue an open and free internet in Viet-
nam as an issue promoting United States economic 
interests and advancing internationally-recognized 
human rights; 
(2) engage all appropriate United States Gov-
ernment agencies to promote the free flow of news 
and information in Vietnam; 
(3) use all appropriate United States diplomatic 
instruments to pressure the Government of Vietnam 
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to halt requests to force social media companies to 
disclose identity, or block accounts and content of 
individuals whose content the Government dis-
approves; 
(4) use all available diplomatic instruments 
available to pursue trade policies with Vietnam that 
expand internet freedom and the information econ-
omy in Vietnam by— 
(A) ensuring the free flow of information 
across the global network; 
(B) 
promoting 
stronger 
international 
transparency rules; and 
(C) ensuring fair and equal treatment of 
online services regardless of country of origin; 
and 
(5) require companies with contracts with the 
United States Government that accede to requests of 
the Government of Vietnam to engage in censorship 
or to reveal sensitive personal information to report 
such requests to the Department of State at the 
time such requests occur and to report the nature of 
such requests and the companies’ responses publicly. 
(c) ACTIONS.—The Secretary of State is authorized 
to take such actions as may be necessary to— 
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