US lifts Vietnam arms embargo
The first order of business during US President Barack Obama’s state visit to Vietnam was to lift a long-standing arms embargo on lethal weapons on 23 May.
The reason given for scrapping the ban was ‘based on our desire to complete what has been a lengthy process of moving toward normalisation with Vietnam’, according to Obama.
With Vietnam’s President Tran Dai Quang standing alongside, Obama added that another factor was to ‘ensure Vietnam has access to [equipment] it needs to defend itself and removes a lingering vestige of the war’.
Obama was insistent it had nothing to do with China.
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