President Obama's multi-venue visit last week to Asia was both emotion-laden and politically charged, highlighted by his visit to Hiroshima. But no stop on the president's six-day tour was more strategically significant than his visit to Vietnam. For more than half a century, America's views on Vietnam have been refracted through multiple lenses. Vietnam War combat vets like myself initially viewed that country painfully. Memories have understandably blurred over time but are impossible to forget.

  • As a personal aside, I was privileged to return to Vietnam in 1995 with the U.S. Secretary of State to participate in the raising of the flag at our newly established embassy in Hanoi. From the moment we landed, my perspectives on Vietnam changed almost immediately; I began, as did many veterans, to view that country through a different lens - one that reflected Vietnam's enormous economic progress despite a ruling regime that stifled political dissent. The Vietnamese people with whom we interacted -- military and civilian, government bureaucrats and small business entrepreneurs -- clearly wanted to draw closer to the United States.

Our two governments have kept pace with these changes. Vietnam has continued its robust transition to a market economy, despite continuing challenges with state-owned enterprises and the business regulatory framework; the economy is expected to grow by nearly 7% this year. Further, US-Vietnamese official ties continue in the same positive trajectory demarcated by the establishment of formal diplomatic relationships in 1995. And this trajectory has enjoyed bilateral US political support: A US-Vietnam bilateral Trade Agreement was inked in 2001, Permanent Normal Trade Relationships (PNTR) were established in 2006, and Vietnam entered the rules-based World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2007.

2016, however, is a watershed year for this burgeoning relationship, and it explains the president's visit last week. In February, Vietnam was one of 12 signatories to the Transpacific Partnership (TPP), an historic economic undertaking that, if ratified by participants, will stitch together 40% of the global economy in a high-standards trade deal. For US businesses seeking to export to Vietnam, the winners will likely be agriculture and pharma; but as US Trade Representative Michael Froman has highlighted, Vietnam has some "heavy lifting" to do to satisfy TPP requirements, especially in establishing and enforcing high-standard provisions on intellectual property, the environment, and labor. The President's Hanoi visit confirmed Vietnam's commitment to do just that.

But what makes a forthcoming TPP vote in the US Congress so crucial is not limited to the economic sphere. For more than two years China has been aggressively pushing claims in waters off Vietnam's coast, asserting, for example, with the flimsiest of legal bases, that virtually 90% of the 1.4 million square miles of the South China Sea constitutes its "territorial waters."

  • In an attempt to cement these claims, the PRC has undertaken an island-reclamation project that, in 24 months, has created over 3000 acres of artificial "Chinese territory." Understandably, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei -- all signatories to the TPP agreement -- as well as other countries in the region not yet parties to the deal -- The Philippines and Indonesia, for example -- are looking increasingly to the US. Despite Chinese rhetoric about its "peaceful rise," US friends in the region view PRC behavior very differently; they are rightly asking: "Will the US be with us? Can we count on Washington?"   

In light of the security issues now unfolding in this vital part of the globe, there is thus another lens through which to view the US-Vietnam relationship: geo-strategy. If US politicians and analysts are concerned about Chinese president Xi Jingping's expanding military footprint and over-the-top territorial claims, as are Vietnam and most of its neighbors, then passing TPP is a geo-strategic necessity.  It's why Secretary of Defense Ash Carter has called TPP the equivalent of another US aircraft carrier for the region, and why a Vietnamese general has said TPP "has more value for Vietnam than buying 10 submarines."  A rejection of this key trade deal by Congress would rank as one of the most damaging foreign policy decisions in generations - akin to the disastrous Congressional passage in 1930 of the Smoot-Hawley tariff bill that contributed to the deepening of the Great Depression a few short years later. It also would tell allies and new friends in Asia like Vietnam, who have drawn closer to the US and labored to bring their business policies in line with global standards, "GET LOST."