Trump-Kim summit: Why should North Korea learn from Vietnam about US relations?

While North Korea remains America's sworn enemy 65 years after the Korean War fighting ceased, Vietnam today stands as a burgeoning partner which even buys lethal US weaponry!

The Vietnamese capital once trembled as waves of American bombers unleashed their payloads, but when Kim Jong Un arrives here for his summit with President Donald Trump he won't find rancor toward a former enemy. Instead the North Korean leader will get a glimpse at the potential rewards of reconciliation. IN PIC: In this April 1965 picture, Vietnamese civilians duck for safety as US Marines storm the village of My Son, near Da Nang in Vietnam searching for Viet Cong insurgents. (Photo | AP) 

By the time the Vietnam War ended in 1975, tens of thousands of tons of explosives had been dropped on Hanoi and nearly two decades of fighting had killed 3 million Vietnamese and more than 58,000 Americans. Vietnam, though victorious, lay devastated by American firepower, with cities in ruins and fields and forests soaked in toxic herbicides and littered with unexploded ordnance. IN PIC: n this March 1966, file photo, a US Air Force B-52 delivers a bomb load of more than 38,000 pounds against Viet Cong strongholds in South Vietnam. (Photo | AP)

While North Korea remains America's sworn enemy 65 years after the Korean War fighting ceased, Vietnam today stands as a burgeoning partner which even buys lethal US weaponry. Bilateral trade has soared by 8,000 percent over the last two decades and billions of dollars in American investment flows into one of the world's best performing economies. IN PIC: A visitor touches bullet holes on an American artillery launcher at Vietnam Military History Museum in Hanoi. (Photo | AP)

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke in Hanoi last year about 'the once-unimaginable prosperity and partnership' the U.S. has come to enjoy with Vietnam and noted Vietnam was able maintain its form of government. IN PIC: Visitors walk next to American aircraft at the Vietnam Military History Museum in Hanoi. (Photo | AP)

Not long after the war, American journalists and official US delegations were allowed entry to a poor, shabby Hanoi, its lovely French colonial buildings moldering from neglect. The only clothes many men had were the baggy green uniforms and pith helmets of the North Vietnamese army. Suspicion was palpable and Westerners, including journalists, were assigned minders to keep tabs on them. IN PIC: Tourists visit Vietnam Military History Museum in Hanoi. (Photo | AP)

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un could take note of the history of win-win rapprochement and how Vietnam's communist leaders have allowed a capitalistic economy and an open door to the US and other outsiders, all while not sacrificing their tight grip on power. Or he could allow it all to pass him by as he narrows his focus for the Feb. 27-28 summit on tit-for-tat bargaining over nuclear arms and economic sanctions. IN PIC: A poster featuring the upcoming Trump-Kim summit in Hanoi, Vietnam. (Photo | AP)