Why Vietnam Appeals as Possible Host for Trump-Kim Summit - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/21/world/asia/trump-kim-summit-vietnam.html
Vietnam, a former enemy of South Korea and the United States, has joined the global economy and become a strategic ally and robust trading partner for both countries.
Vietnam and South Korea normalized relations in 1992, and Hanoi is now Seoul’s fourth-largest trading partner after China, the United States and Japan, with two-way trade valued last year at $62.6 billion.
Vietnam and the United States normalized relations in 1995, two decades after North Vietnam defeated the American-backed South Vietnamese regime to end the Vietnam War. From 1995 to 2016 — a period of heady economic growth in Vietnam — trade between the United States and Vietnam grew to nearly $52 billion from $451 million. Hanoi is now among Washington’s fastest-growing export markets.