I tell myself to tweet from love and this is god’s challenge to me.

But seriously, if you are a white leftist especially in the U.S., pls understand your positionality. Pls know that the Vietnamese đồng is tied to the U.S. dollar and has been devalued over and over since 2012 to spur exports and to ensure the stability of the currency.

You can live well in Việt Nam because the currency is loosely pegged to the dollar so that the US can set the terms for trade.

You can look up "crawling pegs" to read more about power dynamics between two trading countries (and no I'm not talking about fanfics, unfortunately).

You can live well in Việt Nam because VN is still paying off a loan from the IMF from 2001 for its Poverty Reductions programs. So VN needs to keep up its economic growth trajectory, which means encouraging tourism, foreign investments, and multinational corporation factories.

You need to know that the US has 831,400 voting shares in the IMF while VN has 12,989.

The US has 17.44% voting power in the IMF while VN has 0.24%.

That's the power imbalance.

With that voting power, the US voted down IMF's efforts to provide financial assistance to VN after the war, until 1994.

In 1989, after almost 15 years of sanctions, even our former colonizers Japan and France tried to get VN accepted back in the IMF, but the US refused.

And why does Việt Nam owe the IMF so much money? After the Asian financial crisis – caused by neoliberal investment policies – VN needed to borrow heavily from the IMF.

In 1999, the IMF told VN that direct investment into VN was "too concentrated" in sectors like construction and telecomm. Basically the IMF said VN needed to take in investment in exportable goods and services.

Now look at this chart of trade btwn the US & VN starting in 2000:

And what does VN export to the US? The top three are:

✦ Textiles & garments
✦ Wood & wood products
✦ Footwear

These are products made in factories. VN is one of the world’s biggest clothing manufacturers in the world.

Fair Labor Association reported: "Factory workers need to work absurd overtime hours. Many companies pressure factory owners into not paying their workers a living wage. Essentially, this practice perpetuates a kind of “modern slavery,” with little advancement for the workers."

Let's recap:

✦ The IMF pressures VN into taking goods & services investments

✦ The VN currency is pegged to the dollar for favorable US trading terms

✦ VN owes the IMF a lot of money

✦ Viet factory workers don't get paid living wage but make products to export to the US

This is why you can buy a pair of ripped jeans at H&M for $15 dollars, or a North Face fleece at Costco for $20.

This is why you can live well in Việt Nam coming from the US.

Việt Nam is not Disneyland. It’s not utopia. It’s a country with a lot of complex challenges. And yes, it doesn’t have the same political system as the US, but it is still deeply affected by US imperialism.

Pls don’t treat VN like a theme park for your next escapade.

Thank you for engaging w/ this thread and recognizing the imbalance in trading power dynamics & currency.

The person in the prev tweet's ss was tagged and they are angry that I'm using their comment. In retrospect I would have blurred out their name. This is not about them.