President Obama told a townhall meeting of young Vietnamese entrepreneurs and leaders that they shouldn’t worry about American democracy because of the tumultuous state of the 2016 U.S. election, his latest apparent reference to Donald Trump’s unconventional campaign.
“I tend to be positive and optimistic about American politics,” he said.
But when people around the world come to him and tell him, “Wow, what a mess,” he says he believes American democracy can adjust and “correct course.”
“Usually we end up doing okay because the American people are good people … the American people are decent and hardworking and sometimes our politics doesn’t express all the goodness of the American people,” he said.
“But usually, eventually, the voters make good decisions and democracy works … so I’m optimistic we’ll get through this period,” he continued.
The president fielded questions on how the U.S. would help prevent a Vietnamese talent “brain drain” after the Trans-Pacific Partnership is implemented, how to transition the Mekong Delta away from hydro-powered dams, to preventing human trafficking.
When it comes to preventing highly skilled workers from leaving Vietnam, Obama said it’s incumbent on the government to ensure that its policies are providing the right job opportunities for its citizens.
“People usually don’t want to leave their home countries if they feel like they have opportunity in their homes countries,” he said.
On climate change and the importance of the Paris climate accord, he stressed the danger the Vietnamese people are already facing from what he said were man-made shifts in the climate.
“It can have a huge impact on Vietnam’s ability to feed its people,” he said.
Obama found himself providing a little impromptu background beat for a female rapper, and minutes later he was joking about stories that he smoked marijuana in his youth. The president also explained how Ho Chi Minh proclaimed his independence from the defeated French colonial authorities and Japanese invaders by quoting the Declaration of Independence.
“All men are created equal. They are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, among them are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” Obama recited.
The president also fielded questions about his plans once he leaves office. Obama pointed to the program he helped institute that brings young Vietnamese leaders to the United States and other locations, as well as similar programs in other parts of the globe, as a program he will continue to support in order to foster relationships and more international cooperation in the future.
“My legacy 20 year from now — I would feel really good is I see 20, 30, 50,000 young leaders taking over government and business and … they know each other and have built trust and relationships,” he said. “If I could help facilitate that, I would be very proud.”
“So I can guarantee I will continue to work on this,” he said.
The United States released a fact-sheet on the joint U.S.-Vietnamese efforts to cooperate on developing Vietnam’s education system to produce trained, “job-ready graduates with the skills to compete in an increasingly global market.”
The U.S. has committed to instituting a Fulbright University in Vietnam through a $20 million investment. The college will be the first independent, nonprofit university in Vietnam.
In addition, a new U.S. Agency for International Development alliance with seven private sector partners will help improve the effectiveness of medical education in Vietnam.
