Feb. 5 (UPI) -- Though still awaiting Senate confirmation, Jennifer Wicks McNamara is preparing to land in Hanoi not with a ceremonial bouquet, but with a tariff ledger in hand instead.
The ambassador-designate steps into a newly minted "comprehensive strategic partnership" now defined less by warship visits and more by a $144 billion trade gap, market-economy disputes and rising economic friction between Washington and one of its most pivotal Asian partners.
Her posting follows the Trump administration's unusual mass recall of career diplomats, a move that rattled U.S. embassies worldwide and signaled the White House impatience with the slow, methodical pace of traditional diplomacy.
McNamara's mandate appears blunt: recalibrate a relationship the administration views as fundamentally lopsided. While security cooperation has expanded in response to shared concerns over China's maritime pressure in the South China Sea, trade has become the gravitational center of U.S.-Vietnam relations -- and it is pulling both sides toward confrontation even as they speak of partnership.
At her December confirmation hearing, McNamara adopted a notably hard line. She told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the trade relationship is "imbalanced" and pledged to press for "equitable market access" for U.S. goods and services.
