US President Joe Biden has secured deals with Vietnam on semiconductors and minerals as the strategic Southeast Asian nation lifted Washington to Hanoi's highest diplomatic status alongside China and Russia.
The US has been pushing for the upgrade for months as it sees the manufacturing dynamo as a key country in its strategy to secure global supply chains from China-related risks, reports Reuters.
The partnership with Vietnam is part of the Biden administration's push "to demonstrate to our Indo-Pacific partners and to the world, the United States is a Pacific nation and we're not going anywhere," Mr Biden told reporters after the meeting in Hanoi.
Vietnam is navigating frosty relations between Washington and Beijing as the tech and textile exporter seeks its own foothold in the international competition to be a low-cost manufacturing hub.
Top Chinese officials, possibly including President Xi Jinping, are expected to visit Vietnam in the coming days or weeks, officials and diplomats said, as Hanoi seeks to maintain good relations with all super powers.
Mr Biden also said in Hanoi he had talked with Mr Xi's deputy at the G20, and that the two talked about stability.
Vietnam's longstanding relationship with Russia faces tests over the war in Ukraine, including talks with Moscow over a new arms supply deal that could trigger US sanctions.
Reuters has seen documents describing talks for a credit facility that Russia would extend to Vietnam to buy heavy weaponry, including anti-ship missiles, antisubmarine aircraft and helicopters, antiaircraft missile systems and fighter jets.
The US-Vietnam upgrade will include a security dimension, Jon Finer, the US principal deputy national security adviser, told reporters on Sunday, while on the plane with Mr Biden to Vietnam from a Group of 20 summit in India.
He said he had no arms deals to announce at this stage but stressed that the US and its partners could offer Vietnam help to diversify away from Russian military supplies, an offer which he said Vietnam was receptive to.
That would help Vietnam reduce military reliance on Moscow, "a relationship we think they are increasingly uncomfortable with", Mr Finer said.
Mr Biden's visit comes as bilateral trade and investment ties are growing and a long-simmering territorial dispute between Vietnam and China heats up in the South China Sea.
Vietnam Airlines is expected to sign an initial agreement to buy about 50 Boeing 737 Max jets in a deal valued at US$10 billion, timed to the trip.
Highlighting Vietnam's growing importance as a "friendshoring" destination for US technology companies, executives from Google, Intel, Amkor, Marvell, GlobalFoundries and Boeing were expected to meet at the beginning of the week with Vietnamese tech executives and Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Hanoi.
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