HO
CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama sought on
Wednesday to ease growing Asian worries about the raucous election campaign to
succeed him which has been dominated by the incendiary rhetoric of mogul Donald
Trump, now the Republican Party's nominee.
"I think other people sometimes look at our election
system and say 'what a mess'," Obama told a townhall meeting with young
leaders in Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon.
"But usually we end up doing okay because the
American people are good people ... Sometimes our politics doesn't express all
the goodness of the people," he said, without referring specifically to
any of the presidential candidates.
Obama made the comments just before ending a three-day
trip to Vietnam, whose high point was an announcement that Washington's ban on
sales of lethal weapons to the country - a vestige of the Vietnam War - would
be completely lifted.
Obama repeatedly insisted that lifting the embargo was not
a response to Beijing's assertiveness in the South China Sea. Critics accused
Washington of throwing away a powerful lever it had to press communist-ruled
Vietnam for improvements in human rights.
White House officials say the arms move was a natural step
to take with a country that, once an enemy, is now a key part of Obama's
strategic 'rebalance' towards Asia and an important trade partner as its
economy grows apace.
Obama also announced the Peace Corps would begin operating
in Vietnam for the first time.
"EVENTUALLY VOTERS MAKE GOOD DECISIONS"
Across Asia, policymakers have been startled by Trump's
"isolationist" foreign policy pronouncements, which have challenged
much of the status quo in Washington's relations with the region.
Many fear Trump will feed insecurity in nations worried
about China's growing power, embolden nationalists and authoritarians, and
unravel Obama's 'pivot' to the Asia-Pacific.
At the townhall in Ho Chi Minh City, a young woman who had
been an exchange student in Montana asked Obama what he thought of the
prospects that Trump or Democratic contenders Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders
following him to the White House.
"Usually, eventually the voters make good decisions
and democracy works," replied Obama, whose criticism of Trump has
sharpened since he all but clinched the Republican nomination. "Things are
going to be ok. I promise."
Thousands of people lined the streets of Ho Chi Minh City
for a second day to cheer enthusiastically and wave mini-flags of Vietnam and
the United States as Obama drove by on his way to the airport for a flight to
Japan.
At his freewheeling townhall, where he was greeted with a
standing ovation, Obama noted that two-thirds of the country's population were
born after 1975, when the war ended with North Vietnamese tanks rolling into
Saigon to bring U.S.-backed South Vietnam under communist rule.
Obama prodded Vietnam's leaders on political freedoms
during his visit after critics of the government were prevented from meeting
him. When a woman rapper at the townhall asked him about supporting arts
and culture, he segued into an appeal for people to be allowed to express
themselves.
TRADE, CLIMATE CHANGE
However, his unusually long one-country visit was warm and
mostly about strengthening diplomatic and economic relations.
Annual U.S.-Vietnam trade has swelled from $450 million
when ties were normalised in 1995 to $45 billion last year. Washington is a big
buyer of Vietnam's televisions, smartphones, clothing and seafood.
Obama repeatedly touted the benefits of the Trans-Pacific
Partnership (TPP) trade pact, of which export-led Vietnam will be one of the
biggest beneficiaries, if it survives opponents in Washington concerned about
competition and a loss of U.S. jobs.
He also talked about the challenges of climate change when
asked about the drying-up of the Mekong River in the rice-bowl delta of
southern Vietnam, urging Southeast Asian countries to work together.
The Mekong River, which sustains 60 million livelihoods as
it flows through Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, is under threat from at
least 39 hydro-electric dams being built or under development upstream of
Vietnam, most of them in China.
Low river levels have allowed seawater to penetrate
inland, ruining vast swathes of cropland in the fertile delta.
Obama did not name any of the upstream countries but said
the United States would provide smaller member states of the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) with technical assistance and evaluations of
what needs to be done.
"Hopefully ... that information can be used to
negotiate on an international level to try to prevent some projects that might
have very bad effects," he said. "One of the things that we've seen
in ASEAN is that when small countries band together as a unit, then the power
magnifies."
Japan is the final stop on Obama's swing through Asia,
where he is attending a summit of the Group of Seven industrialized nations
starting Thursday.
(Additional reporting by Ho Binh Minh in HANOI; Writing by
John Chalmers. Editing by Bill Tarrant.).
By Matt Spetalnick
