More than 16,500 soldiers and 107,000 paramilitary personnel have been mobilised to help with the evacuation.
Tens of thousands of people have been ordered to evacuate from Vietnam’s coastline facing the South China Sea, with airports and schools shut as authorities brace for Typhoon Kajiki.
The Vietnamese government said on Monday that about 30,000 people had been evacuated from coastal areas. Authorities said on Sunday that more than half a million people would be evacuated and ordered boats to remain in port.
“This is an extremely dangerous fast-moving storm,” the government said in a statement on Sunday night, warning that Kajiki would bring heavy rains, flooding and landslides.
More than 16,500 soldiers and 107,000 paramilitary personnel have been mobilised to help with the evacuation and to stand by for search and rescue, the government said in a statement.
The typhoon with winds of up to 166km/h (103mph) at sea is due to make landfall on Monday afternoon, the country’s weather agency said. The Joint Typhoon Warning Center said conditions suggested “an approaching weakening trend as the system approaches the continental shelf of the Gulf of Tonkin where there is less ocean heat content”.
Two airports in the Thanh Hoa and Quang Binh provinces have been closed, according to the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam. Vietnam Airlines and Vietjet Air cancelled dozens of flights to and from the area on Sunday and Monday.
Coastal provinces have banned ships from going out to sea starting Monday and were calling in those already out, said Vietnam’s news agency.
Vietnam is prone to storms that are often deadly and trigger dangerous flooding and mudslides. More than 100 people were killed or went missing due to natural disasters in the first seven months of 2025, according to the Ministry of Agriculture.
Last year, Typhoon Yagi killed about 300 people and caused property damage of approximately $3.3bn.
‘A bit scared’
The waterfront city of Vinh was deluged overnight, its streets largely deserted by morning with most shops and restaurants closed as residents and business owners sandbagged their property entrances.
“I have never heard of a typhoon of this big scale coming to our city,” 66-year-old Le Manh Tung, in the city of Vinh, told the AFP news agency. He is sheltering alongside other evacuated families at an indoor stadium.
“I am a bit scared, but then we have to accept it because it’s nature – we cannot do anything.”
Houses run the risk of collapse from the storm, and even high-rise buildings could suffer serious damage, said Deputy Prime Minister Tran Hong Ha, the official Vietnam News Agency reported.
The storm is projected to move inland across Laos and northern Thailand.
Kajiki hit the southern coast of China’s Hainan Island on Sunday as it moved towards Vietnam. About 20,000 residents were evacuated from the Chinese province, which downgraded its typhoon and emergency response alerts on Monday morning.
But authorities warned of heavy rain and isolated storms in cities in the southern part of the province.
HANOI — Although the war was hardly mentioned by either side, its presence hovered on the edges of almost every topic as U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Vietnam’s aging leadership met Friday to work toward closer economic and diplomatic relations.
There were the issues of Americans missing in action, and Vietnamese refugees and political prisoners. And there was the presence of Albright herself, on her first visit to Vietnam. Her black sedan with an American flag moving through the streets of what was once the enemy capital received no more notice than a commuter on the way to work.
“There are various things in life I never thought would happen,” she told American and Vietnamese workers at the U.S. Embassy, speaking of the implausibility of such a visit a generation ago. “This is one of them for sure.”
Albright brought with her a list of the steps Vietnam needs to take to achieve the closer economic ties that Hanoi wants with the United States. They include quickening the pace of economic reform, increasing cooperation on accounting for the 1,584 Americans still listed as missing since the war and bolstering respect for human rights.
To some observers, there was irony in the fact that the vanquished were attempting to set an agenda for the victors.
Vietnamese officials, State Department spokesmen said, were receptive to resolving the MIA issue but maintained that their record on human rights cannot be judged by U.S. standards.
“People in Vietnam are saying, ‘We’ve done everything the Americans have asked us to do in every area, and still they don’t give us the trade status we should enjoy as friends,’ ” Le Van Bang, Vietnam’s ambassador to the U.S., said in Washington last week.
Washington and Hanoi have been trying for months to work out a trade agreement that would lead to most-favored-nation status–which all but a few countries enjoy–for Vietnam. U.S. negotiators are seeking a reduction in trade barriers that now limit U.S. business and investment here in return for giving Vietnam more access to U.S. markets.
As a prerequisite for a new trading partnership, the United States wants Vietnam to speed up the processing of 16,000 cases involving Vietnamese who returned home from Asian refugee camps. Washington is considering the resettlement of some of them in the United States but cannot interview individuals until Vietnam has granted them exit permits. The Hanoi government has issued just 359 permits this year, though it had promised to process 1,500 refugees a month.
Albright also asked Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet to release three individuals among the estimated 60 political prisoners that Vietnam is said to be holding: Doan Viet Hoat, Nguyen Dan Que and the Buddhist leader Thich Quang Do.
In her discussions with Kiet and other officials, Albright said, she frequently raised the issues of religious, individual and press freedoms.
When her discussion with Kiet lasted longer than scheduled, she was asked at a news conference how much the war had figured into their talks.
“Interestingly enough,” she said, “there wasn’t a lot of discussion about the war. I very much got the sense . . . there was a great desire to look to the future rather than to the past.”
Significantly, Albright’s first stop in Hanoi was at the compound housing the task force trying to account for missing Americans.
Lt. Col. Jonathan Chase, the unit’s director, told the secretary he believes that Vietnam is making a “full faith” effort to resolve the issue. But he said the Americans need more access to documents and more cooperation in the field.
The recovery campaign costs the United States $10 million a year and is producing diminishing results as more and more service personnel are accounted for. The fate of all but 48 of the missing 1,584 Americans has been “determined,” Chase said, implying that they are believed to be dead.
In the past two years, 40 sets of remains have been identified. But none of the 95 “live sightings” of Americans since 1992 have produced positive results.
Albright’s trip, in pushing speeded-up economic and social reform, took on special significance because Vietnam’s Communist leadership–Kiet, 74; President Le Duc Anh, 76; and Communist Party General Secretary Do Muoi, 80–all intend to step down soon.
Some Western diplomats believe that Vietnam has appeared increasingly uncertain about how far and how fast it wants to move in liberalizing what 10 years ago was a rigid Communist structure. Thus, having a new generation of leadership would be considered particularly significant.
KIGALI, Rwanda — Rwanda on Tuesday became the third African nation to agree to accept deportees from the United States under the Trump administration’s plans to send migrants to countries they have no ties with to get them off American soil.
Rwandan government spokesperson Yolande Makolo told The Associated Press in a statement that the East African country would accept up to 250 deportees from the U.S., with “the ability to approve each individual proposed for resettlement” under the agreement.
Makolo didn’t provide a timeline for any deportees to arrive in Rwanda or say if they would arrive at once or in several batches. She said details were still being worked out.
The U.S. sent 13 men it described as dangerous criminals who were in the U.S. illegally to South Sudan and Eswatini in Africa last month and has said it is seeking more agreements with African nations. It said those deportees’ home countries refused to take them back.
The U.S. has also deported hundreds of Venezuelans and others to Costa Rica, El Salvador and Panama under President Trump’s plans to expel people who he says entered the U.S. illegally and are “the worst of the worst.”
Rwanda attracted international attention and some outrage when it struck a deal in 2022 with the U.K. to accept migrants who had arrived in the U.K. to seek asylum. Under that proposed deal, their claims would have been processed in Rwanda and, if successful, they would have stayed there.
The contentious agreement was criticized by rights groups and others as being unethical and unworkable and was ultimately scrapped when Britain’s new Labour government took over. Britain’s Supreme Court ruled in 2023 that the deal was unlawful because Rwanda was not a safe third country for migrants.
The Trump administration has come under scrutiny for the African countries it has entered into secretive deals with to take deportees. It sent eight men from South Sudan, Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar and Vietnam to South Sudan in early July after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling cleared the way for their deportations.
They were held for weeks in a converted shipping container at an American military base in Djibouti as the legal battle over their deportations played out. South Sudan, which is tipping toward civil war, has declined to say where the men are being held or what their fate is.
The U.S. also deported five men who are citizens of Vietnam, Jamaica, Cuba, Yemen and Laos to the southern African kingdom of Eswatini, where the government said they will be held in solitary confinement in prison for an undetermined period of time.
A human rights lawyer in Eswatini said the men are being denied access to legal representation there and has taken authorities to court. Eswatini is Africa’s last absolute monarchy, and the king rules over government and political parties are effectively banned.
Both South Sudan and Eswatini have declined to give details of their agreements with the U.S.
Rwanda, a relatively small country of some 15 million people, has long stood out on the continent for its recovery from a genocide that killed over 800,000 people in 1994. It has promoted itself under longtime President Paul Kagame as an example of stability and development, but human rights groups allege there are also deadly crackdowns on any perceived dissent against Kagame, who has been president for 25 years.
Government spokesperson Makolo said the agreement with the U.S. was Rwanda doing its part to help with international migration issues because “our societal values are founded on reintegration and rehabilitation.”
“Those approved (for resettlement in Rwanda) will be provided with workforce training, healthcare, and accommodation support to jumpstart their lives in Rwanda, giving them the opportunity to contribute to one of the fastest-growing economies in the world over the last decade,” she said. There were no details about whether Rwanda had received anything in return for taking the deportees.
Gonzaga Muganwa, a Rwandan political analyst, said “appeasing President Trump pays.”
“This agreement enhances Rwanda’s strategic interest of having good relationships with the Trump administration,” he said.
The U.K. government estimated that its failed migration deal with Rwanda cost around $900 million in public money, including approximately $300 million in payments to Rwanda, which said it was not obligated to refund the money when the agreement fell apart.
Ssuuna and Imray write for the Associated Press. Imray reported from Cape Town, South Africa.
The Foreign Office has issued a travel advisory for anyone headed to Vietnam as popular tourist destinations including Hanoi are set to be affected by heavy rainfall with the arrival of Storm Wipha
Vietnam Airlines cancelled several flights ahead of Storm Wipha’s descent in the country(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
Tourists planning to visit Southeast Asia this week have been issued a travel warning ahead of Storm Wipha’s descent on the region. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) warned on Monday, July 21 that the typhoon is heading for northern Vietnam, and is likely to lead to flooding and mudslides in affected areas.
Tropical storm Wipha made landfall in northern Vietnam on Tuesday July 22 – in alignment with the forecast shared by the FCDO. Wipha hit the provinces of Ninh Binh and Thanh Hoa early on Tuesday afternoon and authorities remain on alert due to heavy rains. The FCDO has named specific popular tourist destinations as affected areas, including Ha Long Bay, Hanoi and Ninh Binh.
Hanoi is experiencing heavy rainfall and strong winds with the arrival of Storm Wipha(Image: AP)
Wipha has already ravaged southern China but wind speeds have weakened since its descent on Vietnam according to the national weather forecasting agency.
The FCDO warned travellers to Vietnam: “You should expect heavy rainfall, strong winds, flooding and mudslides in affected areas in the days after landfall. You should expect travel disruption and should follow advice from local authorities.”
The FCDO also advises that travellers can receive regular news updates in English via VNexpress and Vietnam News. Additionally, travellers can sign up to get email notifications when the FCDO updates its travel advice for Vietnam.
A number of flights in Vietnam were cancelled ahead of Wipha’s arrival. Vietnam Airlines announced on Monday that it would be cancelling several flights between Ho Chi Minh City and Hai Phong to “ensure the safety of passengers and crew”.
Meanwhile, Pacific Airlines rescheduled two flights, between Ho Chi Minh City and Hai Phong, to depart earlier than planned, while two more flights on the same route were cancelled.
On Tuesday, all flights operated by Vietnam Airlines Group, including Vietnam Airlines and Pacific Airlines, to and from Hai Phong were moved to depart in the afternoon. The group said: “Vietnam Airlines Group regrets the schedule changes caused by this force majeure weather event and appreciates our passengers’ understanding.
“Flight times may continue to be adjusted depending on the storm’s progression. Updated information will be communicated via the airline’s official channels and passenger contact details provided in booking records.”
Storm Wipha hits Vietnam just days after a tourist boat capsized, leaving 38 dead(Image: AP)
The new tropical storm is set to strike just days after a tourist boat carrying as many as 53 people capsized in stormy weather in Vietnam on Saturday, July 19. Of the 53 people on board, 38 have been declared dead.
The boat was carrying 48 tourists and five crew members near Đầu Gỗ Cave off the coast of Ha Long Bay when it was hit by a sudden squall and overturned, according to local media.
Over the previous weekend, Wipha hit Hong Kong, leaving 33 people injured and the Philippines has struggles with monsoon downpours that began last week.
Hong Kong authorities erected temporary shelters for around 277 people who sought refuge from the storm. There were also 286 reports to the Government’s 1823 Call Centre and the Fire Services Department, 425 reports of fallen trees and seven confirmed flooding cases received by the Drainage Services Department, according to a statement by the Hong Kong Government on Sunday.
Vietnam is bracing for Typhoon Wipha, expected to make landfall Tuesday with winds up to 166 km/h. Mass evacuations, flight cancellations, and flood alerts are underway as the country prepares for deadly floods and landslides. The storm killed three in the Philippines.
Vietnam is expecting 500mm of rainfall as Typhoon Wipha approaches the northern coast after skirting the Philippines, where five people were killed and several are missing.
Rainfall and flooding, which left five people dead and displaced thousands over the weekend, have continued in the Philippines following Typhoon Wipha, which is now barrelling towards the coast of northern Vietnam as a severe tropical storm.
As of 6am local time in Vietnam on Tuesday (23:00 GMT), Wipha was situated 60km (37 miles) off the coast of Haiphong City, with wind speeds of up to 102 kph (63 mph), and was moving southwest at a speed of 15 kph (9.3 mph), according to Vietnam’s national weather forecast agency.
No casualties or damage have been reported so far, while an estimated 350,000 Vietnamese soldiers are on standby as the country’s weather agency expects up to 500mm (20 inches) of rainfall, which could cause dangerous flooding and landslides.
Expected to make landfall in Hung Yen and Ninh Binh provinces, located south of the capital, Hanoi, Wipha is forecast to weaken to a low-pressure event on Tuesday night, the agency said.
Floodwaters driven by torrential rains in the aftermath of Typhoon Wipha brought much of life in the Philippine capital, Manila, to a halt on Tuesday, with tens of thousands evacuated from their homes and at least two people believed missing.
Schools and government offices remained closed in Manila and surrounding provinces after a night of rain that saw the region’s Marikina River burst its banks.
More than 23,000 people living along the river were evacuated and took shelter in schools, village halls and covered courtyards. Another 25,000 more were evacuated in the metropolitan area’s Quezon and Caloocan cities.
An elderly woman and her driver were swept down a swollen stream as they attempted to cross a bridge in Caloocan, John Paul Nietes, an emergency operations centre assistant supervisor, told the AFP news agency.
“Their car was recovered last night. The rescue operation is continuing, but as of today, they haven’t found either of them,” he said.
According to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council in the Philippines, five people have been reported killed as of Monday, and at least another five were reported injured following Typhoon Wipha, local news outlet Enquirer.net reported. Seven people are also missing, according to the council.
At least 20 storms or typhoons strike or come near the Philippines each year, with the country’s poorest regions typically the hardest hit. Their impact has become more deadly and destructive as storms grow more powerful due to climate change.
Earlier this year, Super Typhoon Yagi hit Vietnam, killing about 300 people and causing some $3.3bn in damage.
More than 30 people are dead after a tourist boat capsized in Vietnam’s Ha Long Bay on Saturday after running into a storm, officials confirmed.
Photo by Vietnam News Agency/EPA-EFE
July 19 (UPI) — More than 30 people are dead after a tourist boat capsized in Vietnam’s Ha Long Bay on Saturday after running into a storm, officials confirmed.
Witnesses reported heavy rain, thunderstorms and even hail at the time of the boat’s capsize.
Ha Long Bay is a popular tourist destination located in Vietnam’s northern coastal province of Quang Ninh.
A 10-year-old boy was among those pulled alive from the capsized vessel, VietnamNet reported, adding everyone aboard the boat was Vietnamese.
Vietnam’s Deputy Prime Minister Tran Hong Ha was overseeing rescue efforts at the scene, after the boat rolled at around 3:30 p.m. IT Saturday.
Over two-dozen boats were responding to the incident, including those driven by other tour operators, local police, the Vietnamese Coast Guard and Vietnam People’s Navy.
“Water levels are currently low, which aids access to the wreck,” told VietnamNet in an interview.
“However, the salvage operation must be calculated carefully to ensure the safety of rescuers.”
The boat carrying 53 people tipped over as Storm Wipha approached the country across the South China Sea.
At least 27 people were killed after a tourist boat capsized in stormy weather in Vietnam‘s Halong Bay.
The boat carrying 53 people tipped over around 2pm local time (07:00 GMT) on Saturday as Storm Wipha approached the country across the South China Sea. Strong winds, heavy rainfall and lightning were reported in the area.
Rescue teams found 11 survivors and recovered 27 bodies, eight of them children, the state-run Vietnam News Agency reported, citing local authorities.
There has been no official announcement on the nationalities of the tourists. Most of those on board were families visiting from the capital Hanoi, with more than 20 children among the passengers, the news outlet VNExpress said.
One of the rescued children, a 10-year-old boy, told state-run VietnamNet: “I took a deep breath, swam through a gap, dived, then swam up. I even shouted for help, then I was pulled up by a boat with soldiers.”
Rescue efforts continued into the night to find people still missing.
Vietnam’s Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh sent his condolences to the families of the deceased.
Authorities will “investigate and clarify the cause of the incident and strictly handle violations”, a statement on the government’s website said.
Halong Bay is one of Vietnam’s most popular tourist destinations, with millions of people visiting its blue-green waters and rainforest-topped limestone islands each year.
Last year, 30 vessels sank at boat lock areas in coastal Quang Ninh province along Halong Bay after Typhoon Yagi brought strong winds and waves.
Weather linked to Storm Wipha also knocked down several trees in Hanoi, 175km (110 miles) away from Halong Bay, and disrupted air travel.
Noi Bai Airport said nine arriving flights were diverted to other airports, and three departing flights were temporarily grounded on Saturday.
The new deal comes as the Southeast Asian country plans to buy 50 Boeing jets, according to US President Donald Trump.
The United States has struck a trade deal with Indonesia resulting in significant purchase commitments from the Southeast Asian country, following negotiations to avoid steeper US tariffs.
US President Donald Trump announced the new deal on Tuesday.
The agreement imposes a 19 percent tariff on Indonesian goods entering the US, Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform.
Under the deal, which was finalised after Trump spoke with Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, goods that have been transshipped to avoid higher duties will face steeper levies.
“As part of the Agreement, Indonesia has committed to purchasing $15 Billion Dollars in US Energy, $4.5 Billion Dollars in American Agricultural Products, and 50 Boeing Jets, many of them 777’s,” Trump wrote.
In a separate post earlier on Tuesday, Trump touted the finalised pact as a “great deal, for everybody”.
Boeing stock remained relatively flat on the announcement.
It remains unclear when the lower tariff level announced Tuesday will take effect for Indonesia. The period over which its various purchases will take place was also not specified.
Lagging on trade agreements
The Trump administration has been under pressure to wrap up trade pacts after promising a flurry of deals recently, as countries sought talks with Washington, DC to avoid Trump’s tariff plans.
When Trump first postponed tariffs on April 2, the White House said it would have 90 deals in 90 days. But the US president has so far only unveiled other deals with Britain and Vietnam, alongside an agreement to temporarily lower tit-for-tat levies with China.
He separately told reporters that other deals are in the works including with India, while talks with the European Union are continuing.
Indonesia’s former Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs Dino Patti Djalal told a Foreign Policy magazine event on Tuesday that government insiders had indicated they were happy with the new deal.
Trump in April imposed a 10 percent tariff on almost all trading partners, while announcing plans to eventually hike this level for dozens of economies, including the EU and Indonesia.
Last week, days before the steeper duties were due to take effect, he pushed the deadline back from July 9 to August 1. This marked his second postponement of the elevated levies.
Instead, since early last week, Trump has been sending letters to partners, setting out the tariff levels they would face come August.
So far, he has sent more than 20 such letters, including to the EU, Japan, South Korea and Malaysia. Canada and Mexico, both countries that were not originally targeted in Trump’s “reciprocal” tariff push in April, also received similar documents outlining updated tariffs for their products.
WASHINGTON — President Trump’s decision to hike tariffs once again on some of America’s largest trading partners rattled markets on Monday, dashing hopes on Wall Street that the White House would cut any significant trade deals, as it had promised, by the middle of this week.
In a series of letters sent to foreign leaders, and promptly posted by the president to his social media platform, Trump said the new rates amount to the cost of doing business with “the extraordinary Economy of the United States, The Number One Market in the World, by far.” Under the new policy, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and Kazakhstan will face 25% import duties starting Aug. 1, while goods from Laos and Myanmar will face a 40% tariff, according to the letters.
South Africa’s president also received a letter, stating goods from the country imported to the United States would face duties of 30%.
Markets recoiled at the news, with the Dow Jones industrial average dropping 1.4%, the Nasdaq falling 1.2% and the Standard & Poor’s 500 sinking 1.2%.
The move essentially returns U.S. tariff rates on those countries to those Trump first announced on April 2, on what he called Liberation Day, but that he ultimately abandoned over widespread Wall Street panic that began spooking the bond market.
Trump hit pause on the crisis by announcing a 90-day suspension of the higher tariff rates, a period set to expire Wednesday. But the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said Monday that Trump would extend the deadline to the end of the month.
Several senior officials in the Trump administration had promised a slew of trade deals would follow the April episode — “we’re going to run 90 deals in 90 days,” said Peter Navarro, the president’s top trade advisor. Yet the administration has failed to secure a single detailed trade deal, instead announcing three frameworks of understanding with the United Kingdom, China and Vietnam.
“The president is taking a very deliberate approach to correcting this wrong of many decades, of many past presidents — I think he should be commended for the time and the effort that he’s putting into this,” Leavitt told reporters at a press briefing.
“The fact that he has announced a framework with China, a trade deal with the U.K., a trade deal with Vietnam and many others to come in just six months is truly historic, and it’s a testament to this president and his trade team,” she added.
In his letters to foreign leaders, Trump warned that any effort by their governments to retaliate would be met with escalation.
“If for any reason you decide to raise your Tariffs, then, whatever the number you choose to raise them by, will be added onto the 25% that we charge,” he wrote.
Leavitt said more letters would be sent in the coming days. She also stated that additional trade deals could be announced soon. “We are close,” she said.
Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary, told CNBC in an interview that his inbox was “full last night with a lot of new offers” for trade deals ahead of the now-defunct Wednesday deadline.
“We’ve had a lot of people change their tune in terms of negotiations,” Bessent said. “So it’s going to be a busy couple of days.”
The stock market reaction to Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs, which hiked rates on countries all around the world, was an historic rout, eviscerating trillions of dollars in value, with the Standard & Poor’s index bleeding 12% in just four days.
Markets recovered within weeks, after Trump reversed course, with the S&P hitting a record high on July 3.
Berlin, Germany – In 1979, Kien Nghi Ha lived in Hanoi with his parents, who worked as electricians at a power plant, and his 12-year-old sister in a one-bedroom apartment.
They shared the toilet and an outdoor kitchen area along with their neighbours. One of them, an elderly woman, would sometimes look after Ha, then seven years old, and his sister.
He remembers the cool, smooth tiled floor offering comfort during the blistering summer heat. He would lie on it listening to the lively street noise and occasional sound of a tram beyond a green steel entrance door.
Four years earlier, in 1975, North Vietnamese communist forces had defeated United States-aligned fighters in South Vietnam to take the whole country under a one-party system that remains in power today.
Ha was part of an ethnically Chinese mixed Hoa Kieu minority. Communities like his, especially in the early post-war years, felt vulnerable.
He remembers how children turned away from him after Vietnam invaded Cambodia, then an ally of China at that time in 1978, because of his heritage.
“Some even threw stones at me. This was very shocking, and I didn’t understand at that time what was going on,” he said.
Ha, then seven, pictured on the day he arrived with his family to West Berlin in 1979 after a trip via boat and plane [Courtesy: Kien Nghi Ha]
The family decided to leave. His parents sold their valuables and embarked on a dangerous and costly trip by boat to Hong Kong. Despite no guarantees of safety, an estimated two million people would ultimately leave this way.
At that time, those who feared for their future under the new Communist authorities could choose to resettle in one of three countries – West Germany, Australia or the United States.
The choice was not available for long. When his uncle left Vietnam just three months later, people were only allowed to migrate to the US.
Ha’s parents opted for West Germany as they believed it offered a better work-life balance than the US.
The fractures in Vietnam mirrored divisions in Germany, with North Vietnam backed by the USSR-aligned East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), and the capitalist West Germany supporting South Vietnam.
After arriving in Hong Kong, the family travelled by plane to Frankfurt and then on to Tegel airport in West Berlin, where journalists were waiting, eager to document the country welcoming so-called “boat people”.
“I don’t recall much from the arrival, but I do remember many journalists there wanting to take pictures of us,” Ha said.
The family were provided an apartment within a social housing complex where thousands of people lived near the Berlin Wall on the west side. His father became a transport worker, while his mother was a cleaner in a children’s nursery.
Compared with other social housing at the time, Ha says, the flat was in good condition, with central heating and individual toilets.
But the transition was not easy. Ha felt isolated as one of the only children from a minority background in his primary school.
A different path
Within months of the war’s end, Vietnam signed diplomatic relations with the GDR, paving a different kind of path for Huong Mai to fly overseas a few years later.
At 21, she left Hanoi for Moscow and then travelled to Schonefeld airport in East Berlin. She was among the first groups of contract workers and was soon employed at a factory that made drinking glasses.
Now aged 64, Mai has a 27-year-old son and runs a textile shop in the town where she has lived since she arrived in the GDR.
On April 30, Vietnam marked 50 years since the end of the war. For the large Vietnamese-German diaspora, who arrived as refugees and contract workers, this year’s milestones have stirred a sense of reflection.
Mai said she felt joy on the anniversary.
“My father resisted against the French colonialists, and then my older brother fought against the Americans. So, for me, the end of this war is very meaningful because of the blood that was shed by my family in all of these wars,” she said.
Her brother followed in her footsteps, arriving in Germany in the 1990s alone. His family joined him two decades later, in 2009.
His daughter, 26-year-old Dieu Ly Hoang, now lives in Prenzlauer Berg, which is coincidentally the same neighbourhood as Ha. It is a sought-after area of the German capital, formerly in the GDR, now home to cosy cafes, posh restaurants, yoga studios and affluent expatriate families where English is heard on the streets more often than German.
“It’s been a very important aspect for me to see what my family went through, and how resilient they have been. I know I’m very lucky not to have experienced an evacuation and I can’t imagine what it was like for my grandparents,” Ly said, as she recalled hearing stories about the wartime rations of rice.
“I acknowledge the sacrifices they made to migrate for a better life so that I could be born and live in peace,” said Ly, an art historian.
Ha, now 53 and a father to two sons, is a postdoctoral researcher in the Asian German diaspora at the University of Tubingen and holds a PhD in cultural studies. Friendly, open and knowledgeable of the complex history he is a part of, Ha also said the commemorative events have felt significant.
“There’s an intellectual and cultural discussion going on through which we are trying to make sense of this history and what this history means for us living in the German-Vietnamese diaspora,” he said.
“Questions pop up in private and public conversations, articles, books, and artworks. And knowing more about this history will improve our sense of self in German society, because we are able to discover more about a past that we, the younger generations, didn’t experience on a personal level. This allows us to connect the past with the present.”
An estimated 35,000 refugees arrived in West Germany in 1979, while 70,000 contract workers began to arrive in the GDR in 1980.
When Germany unified in 1990, it brought together, at least physically, two communities.
“In the GDR, people were proud to show international solidarity, and this went hand in hand with hatred of the capitalist West, while the West German government saw the Vietnam War as part of the global struggle against communism,” explained German historian Andreas Margara.
Ly said some of her relatives still mention it when they hear a southern Vietnamese accent.
“They do not become stressed nor do they act differently, but they notice the accent verbally, like ‘Oh, this person is from the south’. They do not go further into details, but I can feel a certain differentiation there because there is this history there. My parents’ generation, including people like war veterans, don’t have the spaces in the diaspora to meet, share their experiences and understand each other more,” she said. “Unified Germany, though, can be a space for more reconciliation.”
She added that her generation has “more chances and spaces for dialogue” as she recalled recently meeting a Vietnamese German art history student and having plenty about which to talk.
Mai agreed that there are not many opportunities in her life to meet southerners, yet she feels no animosity.
“Even though Vietnam has been damaged a lot, we are all Vietnamese and came to Germany to build a better life for ourselves,” she said.
WASHINGTON — President Trump announced a trade deal with Vietnam on Wednesday that would allow U.S. goods to enter the country duty-free.
Vietnamese exports to the United States, by contrast, would face a 20% levy.
On his Truth Social platform, Trump declared the pact “a Great Deal of Cooperation between our two Countries.’’
In April, Trump announced a 46% tax on Vietnamese imports — one of his so-called reciprocal tariffs targeting dozens of countries with which the United States runs trade deficits. Trump promptly suspended the reciprocal tariffs for 90 days to allow for negotiations like the one with Vietnam. The pause expires Tuesday, but so far the Trump administration has reached a trade agreement with only one of those countries — the United Kingdom. (Trump has also reached a “framework’’ agreement with China in a separate trade dispute.)
“Vietnam has been very keen to get out from under this,’’ said Mary Lovely, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “This is forcing a smaller country to eat it, basically. We can do that. It’s the big countries that everybody’s keeping their eyes on.’’ She doubts that Trump will be able to impose such a lopsided agreement on big trading partners such as the European Union and Japan.
The United States last year ran a $122-billion trade deficit with Vietnam. That was the third-biggest U.S. trade gap — the difference between the goods and services it buys from other countries and those it sells them — behind the ones with China and Mexico.
In addition to the 20% tariffs, Trump said the U.S. would impose a 40% tax on “transshipping’’ — goods from another country that stop in Vietnam on their way to the United States. Washington complains that Chinese goods have been dodging higher U.S. tariffs by transiting through Vietnam.
In May, Vietnam approved a $1.5-billion project by the Trump Organization and a local partner to build a massive golf resort complex near Hanoi, covering an area roughly the size of 336 football fields.
Vietnam was a beneficiary of American efforts to counter China’s influence. Companies looking to diversify supply chains away from China flocked to Vietnam.
In 2023, it became the only country to host both former President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping on state visits. That year, the U.S. upgraded Vietnam to its highest diplomatic status — comprehensive strategic partner — placing it on par with China and Russia.
Wiseman and Ghosal write for the Associated Press. Ghosal reported from Hanoi, Vietnam.
The United States will place a lower-than-promised 20 percent tariff on many Vietnamese exports, President Donald Trump has said, cooling tensions with its 10th-biggest trading partner days before he could raise levies on most imports.
Vietnamese goods will now face a 20 percent tariff, and any transshipments from third countries through Vietnam will face a 40 percent levy, Trump said, announcing the trade deal on Wednesday. Vietnam would accept US products with a zero percent tariff, he added.
“It is my Great Honor to announce that I have just made a Trade Deal with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,” Trump said on Truth Social after speaking with Vietnam’s top leader, To Lam.
Trump’s announcement comes just days before a July 9 deadline he set to resolve negotiations before he ramps up tariffs on most imports, one of the Republican’s signature economic policies.
Under that plan announced in April, US importers of Vietnamese goods would have had to pay a 46 percent tariff.
The Vietnamese government said in a statement that the two countries agreed on a joint statement about a trade framework. It did not confirm the specific tariff levels mentioned by Trump.
Vietnam would commit to “providing preferential market access for US goods, including large-engine cars”, the government in Hanoi said.
A deal between the two countries would be a political boost for Trump, whose team has struggled to quickly close deals with Washington’s biggest trading partners ahead of the deadline.
While the administration has teased a forthcoming deal with India, truces reached earlier with the United Kingdom and China were limited in scope. Talks with Japan, the sixth-largest trading partner for the US and closest ally in Asia, appeared deadlocked.
“Vietnam has been very keen to get out from under this,’’ said Mary Lovely, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “This is forcing a smaller country to eat it, basically. We can do that. It’s the big countries that everybody’s keeping their eyes on.’’
She said she doubts that Trump will be able to impose such a lopsided agreement on big trading partners such as the European Union and Japan.
The US is Vietnam’s largest export market, and the two countries’ growing economic, diplomatic and military ties are a hedge against Washington’s biggest strategic rival, China. Vietnam has worked to retain close relations with both superpowers.
Shares of major US apparel and sportswear makers, including Nike, Under Armour and North Face maker VF Corp, rose on the news.
Lam also asked Trump for the US to recognise Vietnam as a market economy and remove restrictions on the exports of high-tech products to the country, Vietnam said. Those changes have long been sought by Hanoi and dismissed by Washington.
The White House and the Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade did not respond to requests for additional comment.
Growing trade ties
Since Trump imposed tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars in Chinese goods in his 2017-2021 term, US trade with Vietnam has exploded.
Since 2018, Vietnam’s exports have gone up nearly threefold, from less than $50bn that year to about $137bn in 2024, Census Bureau data shows. US exports to Vietnam are up only about 30 percent in that time – to just over $13bn last year from less than $10bn in 2018.
Washington complains that Chinese goods have been dodging higher US tariffs by transiting through Vietnam.
William Reinsch, a former US trade official now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the significance of the transshipment crackdown will depend on “how the term is defined and enforced. Some transshipment is outright fraud – simply changing the label; some is a legitimate substantial transformation in Vietnam into a new product; and there is a lot in between. Enforcement is always complicated”.
Details were scarce, and it was not immediately clear how any transshipment provision aimed at products largely made in China and then finished in Vietnam would be implemented.
Trump announced a wave of tariffs for countries around the world on April 2, before pausing the implementation of most duties until July 9. More than a dozen countries are actively negotiating with the Trump administration to avoid a steep spike in tariffs on their exports.
The UK accepted a 10 percent US tariff on many goods, including autos, in exchange for special access for aircraft engines and British beef.
Like the agreement struck with the UK in May, the one with Vietnam resembles more a framework than a finalised trade pact.
China and the US also came to a truce in a tit-for-tat tariff battle in which Beijing restored American access to some rare earth minerals, but the two sides left most of their disagreements to later negotiations.
