Promote bilateral cooperation between Vietnam and the United States

The Vietnamese delegation led by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung attended this Special ASEAN-US Summit, besides affirming Vietnam's proactive, positive and responsible role in ASEAN as well as affirming Vietnam's efforts to contribute to bringing the ASEAN-US Strategic Partnership into reality and effectively, taking advantage of the US's cooperation and support in areas of interest to ASEAN and Vietnam; Bilaterally, the delegation's trip aims to strengthen Vietnam-US cooperation, including security-defense cooperation, science-technology, economic development, attracting foreign investment, and implementing free trade agreements, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP).

Vietnam-US relations have recently achieved positive developments, in both breadth and depth, becoming more substantive and strategic.

Regarding political-diplomatic relations, since the visit to the United States by President Truong Tan Sang (July 2013) with the establishment of a comprehensive partnership framework, the two countries' relations have achieved new, substantive progress in many fields, both bilaterally and multilaterally; Mutual interest and understanding are increasing.

In particular, during General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong's recent historic visit to the United States, the two sides signed the "Declaration of shared vision on Vietnam-US relations", thereby deepening the comprehensive partnership, orienting the relationship to develop more stably and substantively in the coming time.

Economically, since 2005, the United States has become Vietnam's largest export market. Two-way trade turnover has grown continuously at more than 20% in recent years, reaching 36.6 billion USD in 2014, of which Vietnam always has a trade surplus. By the end of October 2015, the total import-export turnover between Vietnam and the United States reached over 37.34 billion USD, up 23.3% over the same period in 2014, Vietnam had a trade surplus of over 26 billion USD in the US market.

US direct investment in Vietnam as of February 2015 reached 11.035 billion USD, ranking 7th in many years. TPP negotiations between Vietnam, the United States and related parties have officially ended, awaiting approval in the National Assembly of member countries.

In security-defense relations, in recent times, the US side has continued to send many important delegations to visit Vietnam, notably Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey (August 2014), Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus... During Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter's visit to Vietnam (June 2015), the two countries' Ministries of Defense signed the Joint Vision Statement on Vietnam-US defense cooperation. In October 2014, the United States announced the partial lifting of the lethal weapons embargo on Vietnam. The two sides maintained the 6th defense policy dialogue in Washington DC (September 2015).

Regarding security, Minister of Public Security Tran Dai Quang paid an official visit to the United States (March 2015). On May 21, 2014, Vietnam also announced its participation in the Security Initiative against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (PSI). The two sides are discussing to sign a number of agreements to enhance cooperation in the fields of security and law enforcement.

Cooperation in education and tourism between the two countries is on the rise. In 2015, there were about 17,000 Vietnamese students and interns studying in the United States, ranking first among Southeast Asian countries, ranking 8th among countries with the most students studying in the United States (ranked 20th in 2006). In the first 8 months of 2015, the number of US tourists to Vietnam reached more than 336,800 (up 6.2% over the same period last year), ranking 4th after China, Korea, and Japan.

In cooperation on regional and multilateral issues, the two sides strengthen coordination at regional forums such as APEC, ARF, ADMM+, LMI, EAS; including maritime security issues, the East Sea, strengthening ASEAN solidarity, promoting the central role of ASEAN, upgrading US-ASEAN relations...

In addition, cooperation in the fields of science-technology, health, environment, humanitarian... between Vietnam and the United States has also achieved many important results recently.