{"id":4036,"date":"2023-04-08T12:03:09","date_gmt":"2023-04-08T12:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/blinken-to-visit-vietnam\/"},"modified":"2023-04-08T12:04:41","modified_gmt":"2023-04-08T12:04:41","slug":"blinken-to-visit-vietnam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/blinken-to-visit-vietnam\/","title":{"rendered":"Blinken to visit Vietnam next week, US senator says"},"content":{"rendered":"

HANOI (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit Vietnam next week, Senator Jeff Merkley told a news conference in Hanoi on Saturday, as part of Washington’s efforts to move diplomatic relations with Hanoi on to a higher level this year.<\/p>\n

Blinken’s visit, which has not yet been officially announced, would come after U.S. President Joe Biden had a phone call last week with the chief of Vietnam’s ruling Communist Party, Nguyen Phu Trong.<\/p>\n

The United States is hoping to upgrade relations with Hanoi this year, ideally to coincide with the 10th anniversary in July of its comprehensive partnership with Vietnam.<\/p>\n

“Next week the Secretary of State will be here,” Senator Merkley told reporters during a visit to Vietnam by a delegation of U.S. lawmakers aimed at boosting relations with Hanoi.<\/p>\n

Blinken is expected to visit Vietnam, likely on Saturday, before he heads to a meeting of foreign ministers of the Group of Seven (G7) countries in Japan on April 16-18.<\/p>\n

In the call, Biden and Trong agreed to boost ties, according to statements from both parties after their conversation, but no mention was made of a formal upgrade of relations.<\/p>\n

Before the call, multiple analysts had said Vietnam was cautious about an upgrade this year fearing that could cause tensions with China. <\/p>\n

Though it is Vietnam’s biggest export market, the United States is currently ranked as a third-tier diplomatic partner for Hanoi. Its top tier consists of China, Russia, India and South Korea, while its second tier, which Washington wishes to join, includes European countries and Japan.<\/p>\n

\n

(Reporting by Francesco Guarascio; Editing by Giles Elgood @fraguarascio)<\/p>\n

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HANOI (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit Vietnam next week, Senator Jeff Merkley told a news conference in Hanoi on Saturday, as part of Washington’s efforts to move diplomatic relations with Hanoi on to a higher level this year. Blinken’s visit, which has not yet been officially announced, would come after […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":4037,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1221],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-top-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportTopNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3703L-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4036"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4036\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4038,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4036\/revisions\/4038"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}