page_title: United States–Vietnam relations
section_title: Vietnam War
hierarchical_section_title: United States–Vietnam relations / History / Vietnam War
caption_attribution_description: English: U.S. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson in a textile mill with Vietnamese men standing in front of a large quantity of textiles with a "Texas Cotton U.S.A." banner.
context_page_description: United States–Vietnam relations refers to international relations between the United States of America and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. After a 20-year hiatus of severed ties, then-U.S. President Bill Clinton announced the formal normalization of diplomatic relations between the United States of America and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam on July 11, 1995. Subsequent to President Clinton's normalization announcement, in August 1995, both countries upgraded their Liaison Offices opened during January 1995 to Embassy status, with the United States later opening a consulate general in Ho Chi Minh City, while Vietnam opened a consulate in San Francisco, California.
  U.S. relations with Vietnam have become deeper and more diverse in the years since political normalization. The two countries have broadened their political exchanges through regular and regional security. The annual Bilateral Human Rights Dialogue resumed in 2006 after a two-year hiatus. They signed a Bilateral Trade Agreement in July 2000, which went into force in December 2001. In 2003, the two countries signed a Counternarcotics Letter of Agreement, a Civil Aviation Agreement, and a textile agreement.
context_section_description: The actions of North Vietnam in breaking the peace treaty with South Vietnam in 1955 abruptly concluded three decades of United States intervention in Vietnam and brought to a close a painful and bitter era for both countries. From 1954-1975 the United States Military was involved in the development of Vietnam. With fears that the United States would lose Vietnam to communism, the country was divided at the 17th parallel, creating temporarily separate states, the North being communist and the South as a non-communist state. While the southern province had the support of the United States, billions of American dollars were spent in efforts to modernize the country. This involvement increased tensions between the two provinces, resulting in the second Indochina War, otherwise known to the Western World as the "Vietnam War". In Tours of Vietnam: War, Travel Guides and Memory, by Scott Laderman, he argues that calling the second Indochina War the Vietnam War "is to thus reveal a certain bias. Should we therefore call it the "American War?" (ix) The war generated considerable social and political discord in the United States, massive disruption in Vietnam, and was enormously costly to both sides. Vietnam endured physical destruction—ravaged battle sites, leveled factories and cities, and untold numbers of military and civilian casualties. The United States escaped physical devastation, but it suffered the loss of 58,000 lives (2,400 unaccounted for) and spent roughly $140 billion ($950 billion in 2011)  in direct expenses to build infrastructure, train an army and police force and modernize the young country. The war polarized and disillusioned American society during and after the conflict. For instance, in 1964 the "Gulf of Tonkin incident" which many have attributed to overzealous radar officers aboard the USS Maddox, was used as extra justification for Congress' decision to allow the then president, Lyndon B. Johnson, to take any necessary retaliatory measures. A large scandal sprung up and documentaries were produced to argue one side or the other of this controversy.
  To the Vietnamese communists, the war against the United States simply extended the war for independence initiated against the French. In Hanoi's view, when the United States displaced the French in Indochina, it assumed the French role as a major-power obstacle to Vietnam's eventual reunification under the North's Communist rule.
  For the United States, intervention was primarily derived from political ideology (i.e. the Cold War) considerations that largely transcended Vietnam.
  United States involvement in Vietnam was driven by many factors, including: ideology, Cold War strategy as well inheriting a colonial legacy from the 4th Republic of France, one of its major allies. There were two major drivers: anticommunist considerations and anticolonialist considerations. Where there was little risk of Communist involvement, for example, in the Anglo-French Suez Canal adventure of 1956, against Egypt, the United States would often intervene forcefully—even against their strongest allies—on behalf of the principles of self-determination and sovereignty for all nations.
  In the closing months of World War II, the United States had supported the idea of an international trusteeship for all of Indochina. Subsequently, in spite of misgivings in Washington about French intentions to reimpose colonial rule in Indochina, the United States was reluctantly forced to support French colonialism in order to assure it as an ally against a potential Soviet threat. Anticolonial sentiment in the United States after World War II thus failed to outweigh policy priorities in Europe, such as the evolving North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) relationship. The formal creation of NATO and the communist victory in China, both of which occurred in 1949, led the United States to support materially the French war effort in Indochina. The perception that communism was global and monolithic led the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower to support the idea of a noncommunist sta
caption: Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson visiting a textile mill in Saigon, 1961
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