United States–Vietnam relations

Early contacts between the United States and Vietnam began around 1787, when US minister to France Thomas Jefferson met the exiled Vietnamese Prince Cảnh, son of future Gia Long in Paris, as Jefferson showed interest in dry rice varieties from Cochinchina (Southern Vietnam).

During the Second World War, the U.S. covertly assisted the Viet Minh in fighting Japanese forces in French Indochina, though a formal alliance was not established. After the dissolution of French Indochina in 1954, the U.S. supported the anticommunist South Vietnam as opposed to communist North Vietnam and fought North Vietnam directly during the Vietnam War. After American withdrawal in 1973 and the subsequent fall of South Vietnam in 1975, the U.S. applied a trade embargo and severed ties with Vietnam, mostly out of concerns relating to Vietnamese boat people and the Vietnam War POW/MIA issue. Attempts at re-establishing relations went unfulfilled for decades, until U.S. president Bill Clinton began normalizing diplomatic relations in the 1990s. In 1994, the U.S. lifted its 30-year trade embargo on Vietnam, though other sanctions remained. While trade was allowed to flow, it was not on normal terms as Vietnamese exports to the U.S. still faced high tariffs in the range of 40%-80%. The following year, both countries established embassies and consulates. Relations between the two countries continued to improve into the 21st century.

Vietnam has pursued closer relations with the United States, especially in the geopolitical context of its territorial disputes with China in the South China Sea. However, it has also kept a balance between China and the United States. The Vietnamese public, unlike in other communist countries, has a favorable view of the U.S. Every U.S. president since diplomatic normalization in 1995 has visited Vietnam at least once, highlighting the importance of Vietnam in the U.S.'s growing pivot to Asia; these visits have been welcomed by the Vietnamese populace despite political differences.

Over 2.1 million Vietnamese Americans are largely immigrants who moved to the United States after the Vietnam War. They comprise nearly half of all overseas Vietnamese.