House Slams Hanoi but Also Votes to Normalize Trade

More than a quarter of a century after the Vietnam War, the House voted Thursday to normalize trade relations with Hanoi, but only after approving separate legislation denouncing the country’s Communist regime for ethnic, religious and political repression.

The bills, approved in carefully orchestrated back-to-back votes, allowed lawmakers to express disgust with the Hanoi government while still approving a trade agreement designed to open the Vietnamese market to U.S. products and permit Vietnamese goods to enter the United States with the same low tariffs that apply to most other countries.

In a letter to the House Ways and Means Committee, read on the floor by the panel’s chairman, Rep. William M. Thomas (R-Bakersfield), the Bush administration said the trade bill “completes a normalization process that has spanned four administrations.”

But the rancor that remains from the Vietnam conflict was evident Thursday. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach), one of the trade measure’s opponents, said: “We’re dealing with gangsters that repress their own people, commit murder of opponents. We expect them to abide by some nice trade agreement with us--the agreements that they make with us will only be followed to the extent that it serves the interests of the government of Vietnam.”

Rohrabacher scoffed at suggestions that increased trade will result in greater freedom for the Vietnamese or will encourage Hanoi to abide by international law.

The trade measure was passed by a voice vote. The other bill, labeled the Vietnam Human Rights Act, was approved 410-1.

Both measures now go to the Senate. The Senate Finance Committee approved its version of the trade bill July 17.

The House vote on the trade measure endorsed an agreement reached between Vietnam and the Clinton administration in July 2000 and sent to Congress by the Bush White House in June.

Vietnam, with 80 million people, is the world’s 13th-most-populous nation. But last year, its trade with the United States totaled only $1.3 billion.

Under the legislation, Vietnam’s normal trade status will last only one year, requiring Congress to renew it or drop it annually. That is the same provision that has applied to China for two decades. Congress last year approved permanent normal trade status with Beijing, to take effect when China enters the World Trade Organization, expected this year.

If the Senate also passes the legislation, Afghanistan, Cuba, North Korea, Laos and Yugoslavia will be the only countries that do not enjoy what used to be termed “most favored nation” trade status with the United States.

Thomas said Vietnam’s exports to the United States, mostly textiles and light manufactured goods, could more than double under the trade measure, which he said would raise Vietnamese living standards and possibly ease the regime’s repression. It will benefit U.S. business, he said, by “allowing us to continue to improve relations with one of the fastest-growing countries . . . in Southeast Asia.”

But with the companion bill, the lawmakers sought to limit any improvement in relations only to commerce. The companion bill accuses Hanoi of curbing the rights of free speech, religion and association, along with violations of the rights of workers and persecution of ethnic minorities.

It prohibits new aid programs to Vietnam except for humanitarian aid until the human rights issues are addressed. It also calls for U.S. assistance to nongovernmental organizations supporting democracy for Vietnam and calls on Washington to take whatever measures are necessary to stop Hanoi from jamming Radio Free Asia.

“In our support for the economic revitalization of Vietnam, we cannot ignore these human rights” violations, said Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden Grove), who said her district is home to the largest number of people of Vietnamese origin in the United States.

Most U.S. troops were pulled out of Vietnam in 1973, and Washington’s South Vietnamese allies surrendered in 1975 to the North Vietnamese. It was not until 1994 that President Clinton ended a trade embargo with Vietnam. The United States and Vietnam established diplomatic relations in 1995.

In 1998, Clinton issued a waiver making commercial trade with Vietnam eligible for U.S. loans and credit guarantees. The waiver has been renewed annually since then, most recently by President Bush in June.