Vietnam-US BTA: the untold story about the lull before D-Day Why was the signing of the Vietnam-US Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) delayed for 11 months in a last-minute decision in autumn of 1999? Those, who have understanding about the historic BTA, know well about the so-called 11-month lull. The US wanted the BTA to be signed in Auckland, New Zealand in early September 1999, on the occasion of the APEC Summit. If this had happened, both the Vietnamese Prime Minister Phan Van Khai and the US President Bill Clinton would have been able to attend the event.  The signing would have been done with the witness of the international community. And if so, the BTA would have been ratified by the US Congress in November of the same year. US President Clinton would have paid an official visit to Vietnam during his trip to Asia later as an economic partner of Vietnam. In Hanoi, on the eve of the expected BTA signing ceremony, Vietnamese, American businesspeople from many countries gathered at Melia Hotel, waiting in extreme eagerness for the signing. They would open champagne as soon as they heard about the agreement signing to celebrate the important event. However, the long awaited event did not happen. No signing ceremony was reported that night, and the next morning. Businesspeople were still sitting there, at Melia, with dull faces. Virginia Foote, chair of the US - Vietnam Trade Council, came to meet Pham Chi Lan, who was then deputy chair of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), at her office the next morning with disappointment. “She (Virginia Foote) gave me a collection of photographs of American and Vietnamese businessmen waiting and falling asleep at Melia Hotel. There was frustration apparent on everyone’s face,” Lan recalled. It was the Vietnamese side which proposed delaying the signing. Lan said this was the special memory of the Vietnamese and American businessmen about the trade agreement. Going through five years and 11 rounds of negotiations, Vietnam and the US together tried to meticulously assemble pieces of hope and belief to create a beautiful picture of BTA. Together with the normalization of diplomatic relations, BTA was hoped to become a historic certificate for the normalization of economic relations between the two countries. However, the last piece, though it was very small, could not be assembled by “D-Day”. The assembling could only be completed 11 months later. This was the “time of silence” needed for all existing problems to be solved. And in summer 2000, the BTA was officially inked, July 13. Pham Huyen, VNN