Vietnam’s Gaza Board of Peace Gambit: To Lam’s Confident New Foreign Policy

Vietnam’s participation in the Gaza Board of Peace (BoP) has generated considerable interest, as it is one of only three ASEAN countries — alongside Cambodia and Indonesia — to join the initiative. Hanoi’s longstanding position on Palestine remains unchanged: it has consistently supported Palestinian statehood and the two-state solution. This is rooted in Cold War-era solidarities with the Palestinian people and the principle of self-determination. What is striking, however, is the manner of its engagement with US President Donald Trump’s BoP initiative. The episode offers insight into General Secretary To Lam’s conception of Vietnam’s “strategic proactiveness” in a turbulent world, and his emerging foreign policy leadership style: decisive, pragmatic, and prepared to take risks.

Previous Vietnamese leaders approached major foreign policy decisions through deliberative Politburo discussions, extensive inter-agency coordination, and careful calibration of domestic and external sensitivities. Risk aversion was institutionalised into the country’s strategic culture. But To Lam’s BoP decision — which was made swiftly with a top-down impetus, bypassing  bureaucratic deliberations — disrupted this pattern.

The decision clearly bears the imprint of To Lam’s foreign policy authority, articulated in his recent signed article: “Our external relations will be conducted with greater confidence, autonomy, self-reliance, and resilience”. In practice, this means acting decisively when opportunities are perceived, even amid high uncertainty, without waiting to gauge reactions from other ASEAN members or traditional partners like China and Russia. The calculus appears to be driven by two considerations: To Lam’s own political consolidations and Vietnam’s high-stakes relationship with the US under Trump.

Hanoi announced its willingness to join the BoP just before the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) Congress where To Lam consolidated power, potentially assuming the combined roles of general secretary and president. By delivering a high-profile foreign policy initiative before Party delegates, To Lam projected himself as a leader capable of navigating consequential international developments. The decision was not merely a diplomatic overture; it was also a form of political signalling. It underscored his credentials as a confident steward of Vietnam’s external relations.

To Lam’s confidence in pursuing this decision rested on his capacity to manage domestic perceptions. As Vietnam’s most powerful leader since the Doi Moi era, he commands sufficient control over the state media and public discourse to deflect potential backlash. After all, the BoP has a USD1 billion requirement for permanent membership — a substantial sum for an economy like Vietnam’s, which must still prioritise pressing domestic socio-economic needs.

Hanoi’s official narrative frames the BoP membership as aligned with Vietnam’s responsibility in helping to end the Gaza conflict and promote sustainable Middle East peace based on the two-state solution, international law, and relevant United Nations resolutions, in particular UN Security Council Resolution 2803 which endorses Trump’s Gaza peace plan and welcomes the establishment of the BoP. Hanoi makes no mention of the USD1 billion price, which it is very unlikely to meet. Instead, it emphasises its potential practical contributions in peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance and reconstruction efforts, drawing on its own experience as a formerly war-torn nation now possessing strong construction and infrastructure capabilities.

Crucially, To Lam’s trip to Washington was about far more than Gaza. It came at a critical phase in ongoing Vietnam-US trade negotiations.

In this, To Lam proved adept at adapting to Trump’s preference for spectacle over substance. Like other leaders who appeared at the BoP inaugural meeting on 19 February, he grasped that what mattered was not bureaucratic detail but cultivating favour with Trump and securing a high-profile platform alongside the US president. Trump’s acknowledgement of To Lam by name at the event, praising Vietnam as “incredible as a country and a force”, provided the kind of validation useful for domestic consumption.

Crucially, To Lam’s trip to Washington was about far more than Gaza. It came at a critical phase in ongoing Vietnam-US trade negotiations. Despite Washington’s imposition of steep tariffs, Vietnam’s exports to the US reached a record high of USD153 billion in 2025, with a trade surplus of USD134 billion. This underscores that the US market remains indispensable to Vietnam’s economic trajectory. Vietnamese entrepreneurs and policymakers widely recognise that sustained access to the US market drives continued foreign investment inflows and enables domestic industrial upgrading.

As To Lam seeks double-digit growth amid rising global uncertainties, the stakes in maintaining productive economic ties with the US could hardly be higher — particularly since the record 2025 trade surplus risks provoking further Trump administration tariffs. During the visit, he secured a bilateral meeting with Trump at the White House — a significant diplomatic achievement that his Indonesian and Cambodian counterparts failed to secure. To Lam also met US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer to inject favourable political momentum into the trade talks. His delegation also included five Politburo members and ministers who held different meetings with their American counterparts.

Arguably, the BoP therefore created space for Vietnam’s most important agenda: bilateral engagement and building rapport with Trump. It also reveals Hanoi’s hardheaded pragmatism, whereby it sets aside concerns that the BoP might sideline the UN and multilateralism more generally. Instead, To Lam is leveraging a Trump-led multilateral platform to serve concrete national interests.

Vietnam’s BoP membership ultimately reveals less about its Middle East peace diplomacy than about the evolution of its statecraft under To Lam — a shift from defensive balancing towards assertive positioning in its foreign policy. Will his bold moves yield greater benefits than the caution and deliberation that traditionally characterised Hanoi’s approach?

Judged against the above motivations, the success of To Lam’s gambit depends less on the BoP’s trajectory than on two factors: his ability to manage domestic perception and Trump’s willingness to reciprocate. The former seems relatively assured; the latter remains uncertain. Will To Lam’s constructive engagement with Trump’s Middle East agenda translate into American flexibility on trade? The jury is still out. Although the Supreme Court has limited Trump’s tariff authority, the administration retains other tools to escalate trade pressure. Greer recently highlighted Vietnam alongside China as countries with which the US maintains persistent trade concerns. This indicates the US’ continued pressure for high tariffs. As a result, Vietnam’s path forward remains treacherous.

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