Max Baucus: “today, I introduce with Senator Gordon Smith a bill to grant Vietnam permanent normal trade relations status. Thirty-one…”

“today, I introduce with Senator Gordon Smith a bill to grant Vietnam permanent normal trade relations status. Thirty-one years ago, the lights went out on the relationship between the United States and Vietnam. Diplomatic relations were broken off, and trade ceased. The story between our two countries became one of refugees, prisoners of war, and soldiers missing in action. Hostility and mistrust prevailed. Normalization was a dream of the visionary or the fool. In 1991--16 years after the last helicopters took off from the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon--flickers of reconciliation emerged out of the darkness. In April of that year, President George H.W. Bush presented the Vietnamese government with a roadmap for normalization. That started a process of healing that lasted through successive Republican and Democratic administrations and was supported by courageous bipartisan action in the Congress: Between 1991 and 1993, veterans Senator John Kerry, Senator McCain, and former Senator Bob Smith led the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs in the most exhaustive investigation of the status of POWs and MIAs ever conducted. In Feberuary of 1994, President Bill Clinton lifted the trade embargo on Vietnam. 17 months later, in July of 1995, he announced the normalization of political relations with Vietnam.…”