US President Joe Biden has closed a visit to Vietnam by highlighting new business deals and partnerships between the two countries and paying respects at a memorial honouring the late American senator John McCain, who endured a lengthy incarceration during the Vietnam War.
Highlights of the major deals announced by the White House during Biden’s first-ever visit to Vietnam include US-based Boeing’s 7.5 billion dollar deal with Vietnam Airlines to buy about 50 aircraft and Arizona-based Amkor Technology’s plans for a 1.6 billion dollar factory in Bac Ninh Province.
Mr Trong formally announced Vietnam had elevated the US to its highest diplomatic status, comprehensive strategic partner. Mr Biden said the shift demonstrated how far bilateral relations had evolved from the “bitter past” of the Vietnam War. Mr McCain parachuted out of the plane and landed in a lake in Hanoi, North Vietnam. He broke both arms and a leg in the fall, was dragged from the water by an angry crowd, and was beaten and bayoneted.