US bars its diplomats from attending Vietnam war anniversary events
U.S. Ambassador Mark Knapper had planned to attend events commemorating the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon.
The Trump administration has reportedly instructed its diplomats in Vietnam not to take part in events marking the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon next week.
According to a New York Times report that cited four anonymous U.S. officials, the Trump administration “recently directed senior diplomats – including Marc Knapper, the U.S. ambassador to Vietnam – to stay away from activities tied to the anniversary on April 30.”
According to the Times, “A half-dozen people with knowledge of the directive said it was not clear where it originated or why it had been issued.” However, the report did note that April 30 is the 100th day of Trump’s second term, and cited some speculation by U.S. officials that “a Trump appointee or a State Department leader feared drawing attention away from that milestone with events that might highlight America’s defeat.”
For several weeks, the Vietnamese government has been engaged in feverish preparations for the celebrations marking the anniversary of Saigon’s “liberation,” which destroyed the southern Republic of Vietnam and paved the way for Vietnam’s unification under communist rule. The celebrations will center around a gargantuan parade through the streets of what is now known as Ho Chi Minh City, but will also involve a series of other smaller events across the city, which is now awash in posters commemorating the event.
According to the Times, Knapper had been “expected to attend the main anniversary events on April 29 and 30 alongside delegations from other countries, including Australia and the Netherlands.”
The fact that Knapper was willing to do so reflected the new warmth in U.S.-Vietnam relations. During the 40th anniversary of the fall of Saigon in 2015, no American official attended the official parade, according to media reports from the time. Instead, then U.S. Ambassador Ted Osius took part in a “small, solemn gathering at the U.S. consulate in Ho Chi Minh City,” at which he dedicated a plaque to Charles McMahon and Darwin Judge, two U.S. Marines who were killed during the final days of the war.
As the Times characterized it, the Trump administration’s decision “adds another blow to decades of painstaking diplomacy by Republican and Democratic administrations, which had sought to both heal the war’s wounds and build a strategic partnership for countering China.”
On its own, the decision to bar U.S. officials from next week’s anniversary celebrations is unlikely to inflict serious damage to the bilateral relationship. Over the past two decades, Vietnam and the U.S. have transcended their painful past to become close economic, and increasingly security, partners. In 2023, they took the historic step of elevating their relationship to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, placing the U.S. on the same diplomatic plane as legacy partners such as Russia and China.
However, the decision comes at a time of growing uncertainty in the U.S.-Vietnam relationship. During President Donald Trump’s “liberation day” tariff announcement on April 2, Vietnam was hit with a harsh 46 percent tariff, among the largest in the world, threatening the viability of the country’s model of export-led industrialization. The decision was met with dismay and disappointment in Hanoi, where Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh stated that it “did not reflect the strong bilateral relations between the two nations.” Vietnamese and American officials are now engaged in negotiations over a trade agreement of some kind, which will probably see the tariff rate lowered, though by how much remains unclear.
Trump’s earlier sweeping foreign aid cuts have also cast a shadow over programs that have been crucial to reconciliation between the two nations. His administration’s deep cuts to USAID programs for a time “halted efforts to clear unexploded American munitions and landmines,” and threatened a 10-year project to remove Agent Orange from Bien Hoa Air Base in southern Vietnam, the Associated Press reported last month. The funding for these projects has since been restored, but their longer-term fate remains unclear.
USAID cuts have also led to the postponement of a planned U.S.-Vietnam exhibit at Ho Chi Minh City’s War Remnants Museum. Since its establishment in 1975, the museum has showcased the atrocities committed by the U.S. military during its ill-fated intervention in Vietnam. However, the planned exhibit detailed “U.S. efforts to remediate the damage of the Vietnam War,” in particular, the activists and Vietnam veterans who helped promote reconciliation between the two nations.
In this context, the decision to prevent U.S. officials from attending next week’s celebrations symbolizes the Trump administration’s indifference to Vietnamese sensitivities and contradicts the themes of friendship and reconciliation that have underpinned the past two decades of U.S.-Vietnam relations.
Vietnam’s leaders are pragmatic, and will no doubt take this latest snub from the Trump administration in their stride. They understand their relationship with the U.S., for both strategic and economic reasons, transcends Trump. But like many of the brusque and erratic decisions that have emanated from Washington since January 20, the decision has inflicted unnecessary damage that a future administration will be forced to undo.
By Sebastian Strangio – The Diplomat – April 24, 2025