On the recordDecember 13, 2022
I have spent more than 30 years working to build closer relations with Vietnam, a country where 58,220 Americans and an estimated 3 million Vietnamese died in a war that never should have been fought. In 1975, as the newest member of the Armed Services Committee, I voted to end funding for the war, a vote that caused the largest newspaper in Vermont to predict that I would never be reelected. The citizens of Vermont reelected me seven times, and that vote is among the ones I am proudest of. The war was a disaster for both countries, and for 20 years after the war ended, the U.S. maintained a trade embargo against Vietnam which only formally ended in 1994, shortly before diplomatic relations were restored in 1995. That historic step toward reconciliation was due in large part to the advocacy of two American veterans, Senators John Kerry and John McCain, and the involvement of key Vietnamese diplomats such as Prime Minister Phan Van Khai, Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Co Thach, and Nguyen Manh Cam. Since the late 1980s, the Congress has approved funding for a number of humanitarian programs in Vietnam to address the harmful legacies of the war. We have provided many hundreds of millions of dollars to locate and destroy landmines and other unexploded ordnance, to assist people with severe physical and cognitive disabilities resulting from UXO accidents and exposure to Agent Orange, to clean up former U.S.…
