{ "error": "", "type": "text", "title": "Secretary Pompeo Remarks at Business Community Reception in Vietnam", "slug": "secretary-pompeo-remarks-at-business-community-reception-in-vietnam", "text": "
\"But this trying time also presented opportunities for Vietnam. The leaders of Vietnam realized their country could reform, it could open up and build relationships, without threatening the country\u2019s sovereignty, its independence, and its form of government. One key to Vietnam\u2019s enormous rise over the past few decades was a new engagement with the United States of America. This began when the U.S. \u2013 the United States and Vietnam began working together to repatriate the remains of American service members lost in Vietnam. This small but incredibly meaningful first step eventually helped lead to better ties and formal reestablishment of our relationship in 1995. This is the same issue that the United States faces today with Chairman Kim, where new ties with America combined with the industriousness of the Vietnamese people and sound leadership has made Vietnam an incredible success story today. It has the fastest-growing economy in all of Southeast Asia. In the past two decades, bilateral trade overall has grown by 8,000 percent. In the last decade alone, U.S. exports to Vietnam have increased by over 300 percent and American companies have poured billions in investment into this country, with great returns. And the Vietnamese people have experienced an extraordinary improvement in their economic wellbeing as well. [...] President Trump has also emphasized to Vietnam the importance of reducing our trade imbalance. We need to resolve these issues that impede American companies\u2019 access to markets here in Vietnam. I hope to hear your ideas tonight and talk to many of you about how we can make progress on eliminating those barriers to American goods so that each of our two countries will be better off.\"
<\/p>",
"quote": null,
"citation": "