If you’re travelling to Vietnam in 2025, you’ll be colliding with some big anniversaries in Vietnam’s history.

Big events in Vietnam’s twentieth century history have a strange habit of occurring in years that end in 5. So 2025 is a year packed with anniversaries. The United States has been in the background or the foreground for most of these events that will be marked in ways large and small this year.

Our sister company, the independent travel guide website Rusty Compass has created a video series reflecting on the United States’ impact in Vietnam in war and peace. 

You can check out Part I below. This first video looks at the unlikely collaboration of  Ho Chi Minh’s fighters and US forces during World War II. That partership quickly dissolved as the Cold War came to dominate the United States’s international outlook. By the time the French military was defeated at Dien Bien Phu in May 1954, the US was their main financier.  Check out the video here.

In Part II in this series, we look at the creation of the US backed Republic of Vietnam in 1955, Ngo Dinh Diem its first President and the fateful decisions that were made that set the scene for decades of catastrophic bloodshed. Check out the video here –

Vietnam and the United States – Timeline

1945 – August Revolution and Ho Chi Minh’s Independence Declaration on September 2nd. Emperor Bao Dai abdicates in Hue marking the end of the Nguyen Dynasty.

1955 – Partition of Vietnam and creation of the Republic of Vietnam under President Ngo Dinh Diem

1965 – First US combat troops land in Danang in March.

1975 – US abandons South Vietnam. The American War aka. The Vietnam War comes to an end.

1995 – After two decades of estrangement, Vietnam and the United States reestablish diplomatic and full trade relations.

2025 – President Trump imposes maximum punitive tariffs on Vietnam, withdrawn soon after. Future trade arrangements unclear at time of writing. Trump administration ends funding for clearance of bombs dropped by the US on Vietnam during war and programmes to rehabilitated areas still poisoned by Agent Orange.

If history, books and travel are your thing, you should check out our Vietnam by the Book tour.