US forces sprayed 12.4 million gallons of Agent Orange over South Vietnam between 1961 and 1971

What comes next for Mai Thi Loi and the many other families in Vietnam that are still affected by Agent Orange?

The question has hung over Vietnam since March of last year when the Trump Administration closed USAID and ended a multi-million dollar program to assist war victims in Vietnam – almost fifty years to the week after the war ended on April 30, 1975.

The demise of USAID brought an abrupt end to a remarkable experiment in peace-building that had transformed Agent Orange from a weapon of indiscriminate cruelty into an instrument of partnership between two bitter former enemies. This blog looks at the history, and the implications for people to people initiatives.

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The tragedy of Agent Orange dates back to 1961 when US forces in Vietnam copied a tactic used by the British in Malaya and began using herbicides to deny forest cover and crops to Viet Cong guerrillas in the South.

Between 1961 and 1971 Operation Ranch Hand, as it was known, deposited 19.5 million gallons of herbicide over 10,160 acres of the South Vietnam – roughly 10% of the country. Of this, 12.6 million gallons was Agent Orange – a highly toxic mixture of two dioxin-laden chemicals, so named because it was stored in canisters with orange stripes.

The war may have ended fifty years ago, but Agent Orange has not lost its power to shock and surprise. On the one hand dioxin continues to take a terrible toll in Vietnam on families like Mai Thi Loi’s. On the other hand – and rather remarkably – Agent Orange has helped the US and Vietnam find common purpose and build a new relationship.

The effort began to take shape in 1995 when diplomatic relations were restored between Vietnam and the US. As they began to look for ways to heal the wounds, the two governments found common cause in remnants of the war including missing service members (MIAs), unexploded ordnance (UXO), landmines, and victims of dioxin poisoning.

MIAs came first. Families of missing American service members had begun demanding answers in the late 1970s and the call was taken up by The Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA) that was established in 1978 and became a powerful advocate for war victims in both countries. UXO and landmines came next when – at the urging of US Senator Patrick Leahy – the US Congress set up a War Victims Fund in 1989 to support injured Vietnamese.

It was not until 2006 that Agent Orange – the most controversial legacy of the war – was addressed at the highest levels of government. During a visit to Vietnam, President George Bush and the Vietnamese president Nguyen Minh Triet signed an agreement to clean up heavily contaminated dioxin “hotspots,” starting with the former US aid base at Da Nang.

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For students of peace-building, this was a remarkable development, even if the lethal nature of Agent Orange had been well understood for years.

Advocates for US involvement reasoned that starting with the environment would pave the way to people, and eventually it did. In 2019, USAID began funding a program to assist families affected by disability, including Agent Orange, in eight provinces that had been heavily sprayed (Quang Tri, Thua Thien – Hue, Quang Nam, Binh Dinh, Kon Tum, Tay Ninh, Binh Phuoc and Dong Nai.) By the time the program ended last March, over 17,000 individuals had benefited.

Speaking at the recent Stimson webinar, Susan Berresford, the former president of the Ford Foundation, described this long journey as a perfect example of a public-private partnership that played to the strengths of the different partners – individuals, NGOs, Foundations, and government.

The Ford foundation itself played a major role by opening an office in Hanoi in 2006 and establishing a high-level dialogue on Agent Orange for experts from both countries a year later. The experts found willing allies in Senator Leahy and his chief aide Tim Reiser, who made sure that money was earmarked for USAID by Congress.

By the time Ford handed over the Agent Orange portfolio to the Aspen Institute in 2011, the Foundation had committed $17 million and helped to leverage many millions more US government aid to support war victims in Vietnam and clean up dioxin pollution. Ms Berresford estimates that total US funding reached $540 million by 2025.

Even the Nobel Peace Committee contributed, by awarding the 1997 peace prize to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. The campaign was co-founded by Bobby Muller, who also launched the Vietnam Veterans of America.

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In spite of the demise of the USAID program, there is plenty to suggest that the Trump administration understands the role played by Agent Orange in building a partnership between the US and Vietnam.

US funding for cleaning up a second former US base Bien Hoa resumed almost immediately after USAID was closed in March 2025 when it became clear that millions of tons of polluted earth that had been partially removed could trigger an environmental disaster if left untreated.

According to reports from Vietnam, the Trump administration has also included Agent Orange in a far-ranging strategic agreement between the two governments that was signed on October 31 that was signed by the US Ambassador in Hanoi. As part of the agreement, the US pledged $97 million to help Vietnam’s National Center for Toxic Chemicals and Environmental treatments (NACCET) work on Agent Orange through to 2030. 

It is unclear how the money will be spent, and whether funding will be restored to the eight provinces in Vietnam that were the cornerstone of USAID’s former program. This presumably will be negotiated by the embassy and Vietnam. I will return to this in my final blog.

In the meantime, a large number of highly effective former activists are wondering which way to turn. 

Next – Poisoned History