On March 19, Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejected the latest annual report from the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) as “unobjective, inaccurate and based on information with ill intent.”
The response followed a well-established pattern – USCIRF has recommended that Vietnam be designated a “Country of Particular Concern” (CPC) every year since 2001, and Hanoi has pushed back each time.
USCIRF’s concerns are substantive and well-documented. Vietnam operates a system in which religious organizations must register with the state and submit to a recognition process that gives authorities considerable discretion over leadership appointments, property matters and doctrinal interpretation.
A 2024 USCIRF report documented how the Communist Party uses state-controlled religious organizations to manage religious life through strategies of substitution, co-optation and infiltration.
International observers note that groups that fail to secure recognition — such as independent Hoa Hao Buddhists, branches of Cao Dai, the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam and various Protestant denominations — may face surveillance, harassment and, in some cases, imprisonment.
Ethnic minority Christians in the central and northern highlands, particularly Hmong and Montagnard communities, are disproportionately affected. USCIRF reports that more than 80 people are currently detained for their religion or belief.
Vietnam’s 2018 Law on Belief and Religion formally guarantees religious freedom but retains broad state discretion, and its implementation varies widely. Religious life in major cities proceeds with limited interference, while rural and highland authorities treat unregistered worship as a security concern.
The US State Department acted on USCIRF’s recommendation and designated Vietnam a CPC in 2004 but lifted the designation in November 2006 after bilateral negotiations in which Vietnam pledged to improve conditions by banning forced renunciations of faith, releasing prisoners and expanding the space for permissible religious activity.
The timing coincided with Vietnam’s World Trade Organization accession, and USCIRF argued at the time that the removal was premature. It has called for redesignation every year since.
The State Department placed Vietnam on its Special Watch List in November 2022 — the first such action since the CPC was lifted — but has not taken further action.
However, US religious freedom advocacy carries its own credibility questions. The post-9/11 surveillance of American Muslim communities – justified, like Vietnam’s own restrictions, on national security grounds – the 2017 travel ban targeting Muslim-majority countries and the Trump administration’s first term alignment of “religious liberty” with conservative Christian priorities each undercut Washington’s claim to be an impartial advocate of religious pluralism.
The second Trump administration has moved well beyond its predecessor, building an explicit institutional apparatus around the protection of Christianity that makes the credibility gap harder to ignore.
In February 2025, Trump signed an executive order establishing the Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias across federal agencies. In May, he created a Religious Liberty Commission whose membership is drawn predominantly from conservative Christian circles.
Its chair, Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, supports prayer and displays of the Ten Commandments in public schools, while one commissioner has publicly described Islam as “a death cult.”
At the commission’s inaugural announcement, Trump remarked on the principle separating church and state: “Let’s forget about that for once.” His Religious Freedom Day proclamation in January 2026 cast America as “one glorious Nation under God” and urged families to gather at places of worship.
The parallel is imperfect but difficult to overlook. Vietnam’s system privileges state-approved religious organizations and suppresses independent practice. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is building a policy apparatus oriented around the protection and promotion of conservative Christianity.
The scale and consequences differ considerably – the US does not operate a system that requires state approval for religious practice, even if minority faiths and non-believers have faced oppression.
But the underlying principle of state neutrality toward religion, which has underpinned the credibility of US religious freedom advocacy, is being eroded at home.
Vietnam’s response to USCIRF has been consistent, repeated almost verbatim by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs year after year: the reports are factually wrong, their sources are hostile, religious freedom is protected under the 2013 Constitution and upheld in practice, and Vietnam’s record has been recognized through multilateral mechanisms, including the UN Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review.
It is an argument about evidence and intent, not the principle of religious freedom itself – though one may argue that Vietnam’s broader approach to human rights prioritizes collective stability and economic development over individual civil liberties.
Vietnam’s objections to USCIRF are not driven by fear of direct sanctions but are an exercise in public diplomacy directed at multiple audiences. Domestically, they reassure the public that the party-state protects their human rights and signal that external judgments on its governance are rejected.
Internationally, it is about managing reputation in fora that matter to Vietnam – relations with European partners, where human rights featured in the 2020 EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement, and standing among fellow ASEAN members.
None of this diminishes the seriousness of what is documented in Vietnam. The evidence base compiled by USCIRF and the State Department over two decades is extensive and independently corroborated. But when it comes to promoting religious freedom, Washington is increasingly throwing stones from a glass house.
Lam Duc Vu is a Vietnam-based risk analyst focused on regional trade and geopolitics