Sec. 5. United States public diplomacy. 
Sec. 6. Religious freedom and human trafficking. 
Sec. 7. Annual report. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS AND PURPOSE. 
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 two countries 
reaching nearly $36,000,000,000 in 2014. 
(2) The Government of Vietnam’s transition to-
ward greater economic liberalization and trade has 
not been matched by greater political freedom and 
substantial improvements in basic human rights for 
Vietnamese citizens, including freedom of religion, 
expression, association, and assembly. 
(3) The United States Congress agreed to Viet-
nam becoming an official member of the World 
Trade Organization in 2006, amidst assurances that 
the Government of Vietnam was steadily improving 
its human rights record and would continue to do so. 
(4) Vietnam remains a one-party state, ruled 
and controlled by the Communist Party of Vietnam 
(CPV), which continues to deny the right of citizens 
to change their Government. 
(5) Although in recent years the National As-
sembly of Vietnam has played an increasingly active 
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role as a forum for highlighting local concerns, cor-
ruption, and inefficiency, the National Assembly re-
mains subject to the direction of the CPV and the 
CPV maintains control over the selection of can-
didates in national and local elections. 
(6) The Government of Vietnam forbids public 
challenge to the legitimacy of the one-party state, re-
stricts freedoms of opinion, the press, and associa-
tion and tightly limits access to the Internet and 
telecommunication. 
(7) Since Vietnam’s accession to the WTO on 
January 11, 2007, the Government of Vietnam arbi-
trarily arrested and detained numerous individuals 
for their peaceful advocacy of religious freedom, de-
mocracy, and human rights, including Father 
Nguyen Van Ly, Pastor Nguyen Cong Chinh, Pastor 
Duong Kim Khai, labor organizers Nguyen Hoang 
Quoc Hung and Doan Huy Chuong, and bloggers 
Nguyen Huu Vinh, Nguyen Thi Minh Thuy, and Ta 
Phong Tan. 
(8) The Government of Vietnam continues to 
detain, imprison, place under house arrest, convict, 
or otherwise restrict persons for the peaceful expres-
sion of dissenting political or religious views. 
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(9) The Government of Vietnam continues to 
detain labor leaders and restricts the right to orga-
nize independently. 
(10) The Government of Vietnam continues to 
limit the freedom of religion, restrict the operations 
of independent religious organizations, force people 
of faith to renounce their faith, expropriate lands 
and properties belonging to independent churches, 
and persecute believers whose religious activities the 
Government regards as a potential threat to its mo-
nopoly on power. 
(11) According to the United Nations Special 
Rapporteur on freedom of religion or of belief, who 
recently conducted a mission to Vietnam, ‘‘autonomy 
and activities of independent religious or belief com-
munities, that is, unrecognized communities, remain 
restricted and unsafe, with the rights to freedom of 
religion or belief of such communities grossly vio-
lated in the face of constant surveillance, intimida-
tion, harassment and persecution’’. 
(12) Despite reported progress in church open-
ings and legal registrations of religious venues, the 
Government of Vietnam has halted most positive ac-
tions and increasingly cracked down on independent 
religious communities since the Department of State 
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lifted the ‘‘country of particular concern’’ (CPC) 
designation for Vietnam in November 2006. 
(13) Unregistered ethnic minority Protestant 
congregations, particularly Montagnards in the Cen-
tral Highlands and Hmong in the Northwest Moun-
tainous Regions, suffer severe abuses because of ac-
tions by the Government of Vietnam, which have in-
cluded forced renunciations of faith, arrest and har-
assment, the withholding of social programs pro-
vided for the general population, confiscation and 
destruction of property, subjection to severe beat-
ings, and reported deaths. 
(14) There has been a pattern of violent re-
sponses by the Government to peaceful prayer vigils 
and demonstrations by Catholics for the return of 
Government-confiscated 
church 
properties. 
Pro-
testers have been harassed, beaten, and detained 
and church properties have been destroyed. Catholics 
also continue to face some restrictions on selection 
of clergy, the establishment of seminaries and semi-
nary candidates, and individual cases of travel and 
church registration. Catholicism is not recognized in 
the provinces of Dien Bien, Son La, and Lai Chau. 
(15) In May 2010 the village of Con Dau, a 
Catholic parish in Da Nang, faced escalated violence 
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during a funeral procession as police attempted to 
prohibit a religious burial in the village cemetery; 
more than 100 villagers were injured, 62 were ar-
rested, five were tortured, and at least three died. 
The situation has remained unresolved. 
(16) The Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam 
(UBCV) suffers persecution as the Government of 
Vietnam continues to restrict contacts and move-
ment of senior UBCV clergy for refusing to join the 
state-sponsored Buddhist organization, the Govern-
ment restricts expression and assembly, and the 
Government continues to harass and threaten UBCV 
monks, nuns, and youth leaders. 
(17) The Government of Vietnam continues to 
suppress the activities of other religious adherents, 
including Cao Dai and Hoa Hao Buddhists who lack 
official recognition or have chosen not to affiliate 
with the state-sanctioned groups, including through 
the use of detention, imprisonment, and strict Gov-
ernment oversight. 
(18) Many Montagnards and others are still 
serving long prison sentences for their involvement 
in peaceful demonstrations in 2001, 2002, 2004, 
and 2008. Montagnards continue to face threats, de-
tention, beatings, forced renunciation of faith, prop-
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erty destruction, restricted movement, and reported 
deaths at the hands of Government officials. 
(19) Ethnic minority Hmong in Northern Viet-
nam, the Northwest Highlands, and the Central 
Highlands of Vietnam also suffers restrictions, con-
fiscation of property, abuses, and persecution by the 
Government of Vietnam. Many of their leaders have 
been sentenced to prison terms. 
(20) The Government of Vietnam restricts 
Khmer Krom expression, assembly, and association, 
has confiscated nearly all the Theravada Buddhist 
temples, controls all Khmer Krom Buddhist religious 
organizations, prohibits most peaceful protests, and 
imprisons many Khmer Krom Buddhist monks who 
worked to preserve the Khmer Krom culture. 
(21) People arrested in Vietnam because of 
their political or religious affiliations and activities 
often are not accorded due legal process as they lack 
full access to lawyers of their choice, may experience 
closed trials, have often been detained for years 
without trial, and have been subjected to the use of 
torture to admit crimes they did not commit or to 
falsely denounce their own leaders. 
(22) Vietnam continues to be a source country 
for the commercial sexual exploitation and forced 
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labor of women and girls, as well as for men and 
women legally entering into international labor con-
tracts who subsequently face conditions of debt 
bondage or forced labor, and is a destination country 
for child trafficking and continues to have internal 
human trafficking. 
(23) There are many reports of Vietnamese of-
ficials and employees participating in, facilitating, 
condoning, or otherwise being complicit in severe 
forms of human trafficking. Victims of human traf-
ficking who speak out against traffickers in the gov-
ernment-run labor export program receive threats of 
punishment by government authorities. 
(24) United States refugee resettlement pro-
grams, including the Humanitarian Resettlement 
(HR) Program, the Orderly Departure Program 
(ODP), Resettlement Opportunities for Vietnamese 
Returnees (ROVR) Program, general resettlement of 
boat people from refugee camps throughout South-
east Asia, the Amerasian Homecoming Act of 1988, 
and the Priority One Refugee resettlement category, 
have helped rescue Vietnamese nationals who have 
suffered persecution on account of their associations 
with the United States or, in many cases, because of 
such associations by their spouses, parents, or other 
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family members, as well as other Vietnamese nation-
als who have been persecuted because of race, reli-
gion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in 
a particular social group. 
(25) While previous programs have served their 
purposes well, a significant number of eligible refu-
gees from Vietnam were unfairly denied or excluded, 
including Amerasians, in some cases by vindictive or 
corrupt Vietnamese officials who controlled access to 
the programs, and in others by United States per-
sonnel who imposed unduly restrictive interpreta-
tions of program criteria. In addition, the Govern-
ment of Vietnam has denied passports to persons 
who the United States has found eligible for refugee 
admission. 
(26) The Government of Vietnam reportedly is 
detaining tens of thousands of people, with some as 
young as 12 years old, in government-run drug de-
tention centers and treating them as slave laborers. 
(27) In 2012, over 150,000 people signed an 
online petition calling on the Administration to not 
expand trade with communist Vietnam at the ex-
pense of human rights. 
(28) Each year close to a thousand Vietnamese- 
American advocates from across the country convene 
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in Washington, DC, to call on the administration to 
attach human rights conditions to trade and security 
agreements with Vietnam. 
(29) Congress has passed numerous resolutions 
condemning human rights abuses in Vietnam, indi-
cating that although there has been an expansion of 
relations with the Government of Vietnam, it should 
not be construed as approval of the ongoing and se-
rious violations of fundamental human rights in 
Vietnam. 
SEC. 3. PROHIBITION ON INCREASED NONHUMANITARIAN 
ASSISTANCE TO THE GOVERNMENT OF VIET-
NAM. 
(a) ASSISTANCE.— 
(1) IN GENERAL.—Except as provided in sub-
sections (b), the Federal Government may not pro-
vide nonhumanitarian assistance to the Government 
of Vietnam, or to any organization working within 
Vietnam under an agreement signed with a Govern-
ment of Vietnam entity, agency, or organization dur-
ing any fiscal year in an amount that exceeds the 
amount of such assistance provided for fiscal year 
2014 unless— 
(A) with respect to the limitation for fiscal 
year 2014, the President determines and cer-
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tifies to Congress, not later than 30 days after 
the date of the enactment of this Act, that the 
requirements of subparagraphs (A) through (G) 
of paragraph (2) have been met during the 12- 
month period ending on the date of the certifi-
cation; and 
(B) with respect to the limitation for sub-
sequent fiscal years, the President determines 
and certifies to Congress, in the most recent 
annual report submitted pursuant to section 7, 
that the requirements of subparagraphs (A) 
through (G) of paragraph (2) have been met 
during the 12-month period covered by the re-
port. 
(2) REQUIREMENTS.—The requirements of this 
paragraph are the following: 
(A) The Government of Vietnam has made 
substantial progress toward releasing all polit-
ical and religious prisoners from imprisonment, 
house arrest, and other forms of detention, in-
cluding journalists and bloggers, independent 
labor union members, democracy and free 
speech advocates and those detained for engag-
ing in religious activity or peaceful protests 
against religious freedom restrictions. 
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pendent of government oversight and control 
and the right to participate in nonviolent dem-
onstrations, rallies, or civil society organiza-
tions, in accordance with international stand-
ards and treaties to which Vietnam is a party. 
(F) Neither any official of the Government 
of Vietnam nor any agency or entity wholly or 
partly owned by the Government of Vietnam 
was complicit in the trafficking in persons and 
the Government of Vietnam took all necessary 
and appropriate steps to end any such com-
plicity and hold such official, agency, or entity 
fully accountable for its conduct. 
(G) The Government of Vietnam has made 
substantial progress toward allowing Viet-
namese nationals free and open access to 
United States refugee programs. 
(H) The Government of Vietnam has made 
substantial progress toward respecting the 
internationally guaranteed human rights of 
members of all ethnic and minority groups. 
(b) EXCEPTION.— 
(1) CONTINUATION OF ASSISTANCE IN THE NA-
TIONAL INTEREST.—Notwithstanding the failure of 
the Government of Vietnam to meet the require-
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ments of subsection (a)(2), the President may waive 
the application of subsection (a) for any fiscal year 
if the President determines that the provision to the 
Government of Vietnam of increased nonhumani-
tarian assistance would promote the purpose of this 
Act or is otherwise in the national interest of the 
United States. 
(2) EXERCISE
OF
WAIVER
AUTHORITY.—The 
President may exercise the authority under para-
graph (1) with respect to— 
(A) all United States nonhumanitarian as-
sistance to Vietnam; or 
(B) one or more programs, projects, or ac-
tivities of such assistance. 
(c) DEFINITIONS.—In this section: 
(1) 
NONHUMANITARIAN
ASSISTANCE.—The 
term ‘‘nonhumanitarian assistance’’ means— 
(A) any assistance under the Foreign As-
sistance Act of 1961 (including programs under 
title IV of chapter 2 of part I of that Act, relat-
ing to the Overseas Private Investment Cor-
poration), other than— 
(i) disaster relief assistance, including 
any assistance under chapter 9 of part I of 
that Act; 
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(ii) assistance which involves the pro-
vision of food (including monetization of 
food) or medicine; 
(iii) assistance for environmental re-
mediation of dioxin-contaminated sites and 
related health activities; 
(iv) assistance for demining and 
unexploded ordnance (UXO) remediation, 
and related health and educational activi-
ties; 
(v) assistance to combat severe forms 
of trafficking in persons; 
(vi) assistance to combat diseases; 
(vii) assistance for refugees; 
(viii) assistance to combat HIV/AIDS, 
including any assistance under section 
104A of that Act; and 
(ix) assistance to prevent child labor; 
and 
(B) sales, or financing on any terms, under 
the Arms Export Control Act. 
(2) SEVERE FORM OF TRAFFICKING IN PER-
SONS.—The term ‘‘severe form of trafficking in per-
sons’’ means any activity described in section 103(8) 
of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 
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(Public Law 106–386 (114 Stat. 1470); 22 U.S.C. 
7102(8)). 
(d) EFFECTIVE DATE.—This section shall take effect 
on the date of the enactment of this Act and shall apply 
with respect to the provision of nonhumanitarian assist-
ance to the Government of Vietnam for fiscal year 2016 
and subsequent fiscal years. 
SEC. 4. EASING OF RESTRICTIONS FOR VIETNAM UNDER 
THE ARMS EXPORT CONTROL ACT. 
It is the sense of Congress that it shall be the policy 
of the United States that further easing of the prohibition 
on the sale of lethal military equipment to the Government 
of Vietnam under the Arms Export Control Act shall re-
quire the Government of Vietnam to take additional, sig-
nificant, and sustained steps to advance human rights pro-
tections, specifically internationally recognized norms of 
civil and political rights, through legal reforms, the release 
of prisoners of conscience, the establishment of inde-
pendent labor unions, and guarantees to the freedom of 
religion and expression, including Internet freedom. 
SEC. 5. UNITED STATES PUBLIC DIPLOMACY. 
(a) RADIO FREE ASIA TRANSMISSIONS
TO VIET-
NAM.—It is the sense of Congress that the United States 
should take measures to overcome the jamming of Radio 
Free Asia by the Government of Vietnam and that the 
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Broadcasting Board of Governors should not cut staffing, 
funding, or broadcast hours for the Vietnamese language 
services of the Voice of America and Radio Free Asia, 
which shall be done without reducing any other broadcast 
language services. 
(b) UNITED STATES EDUCATIONAL AND CULTURAL 
EXCHANGE PROGRAMS WITH VIETNAM.—It is the sense 
of Congress that any programs of educational and cultural 
exchange between the United States and Vietnam should 
actively promote progress toward freedom and democracy 
in Vietnam by providing opportunities to Vietnamese na-
tionals from a wide range of occupations and perspectives 
to see freedom and democracy in action and, also, by en-
suring that Vietnamese nationals who have already dem-
onstrated a commitment to these values are included in 
such programs. Cultural programs should recognize and 
find ways to assist Vietnam’s religious and ethnic diver-
sity. 
SEC. 6. RELIGIOUS FREEDOM AND HUMAN TRAFFICKING. 
(a) COUNTRY OF PARTICULAR CONCERN.—It is the 
sense of Congress that Vietnam should be designated as 
a country of particular concern for religious freedom pur-
suant to section 402(b) of the International Religious 
Freedom Act of 1998 (22 U.S.C. 6442(b)). 
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