President Obama on Tuesday became the first sitting U.S. president to visit the landlocked nation of Laos, where he referred to the United States' secret bombing of the nation during the Vietnam War in the 1960s and '70s. "Given our history here, I believe that the United States has a moral obligation to help Laos heal," he said.
The U.S. dropped over two million tons of bombs on the country during the war, making Laos the most heavily-bombed nation in human history. An estimated 30 percent of the explosives dropped remained un-detonated, and they continue to kill Laotians to this day; Obama vowed $90 million to remove such unexploded weapons in the next three years.
Obama had also been set to meet with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte at the Southeast Asian summit, the gathering of regional leaders that opened Tuesday, but Obama canceled the meeting early Tuesday after Duterte used profane language to refer to Obama and express that he was not an "American puppet."
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Lazarus: Harlan Coben’s ‘embarrassingly compelling’ thrillerThe Week Recommends Bill Nighy and Sam Claflin play father-and-son psychiatrists in this ‘precision-engineered’ crime drama
-
Dutch center-left rises in election as far-right fallsSpeed Read The country’s other parties have ruled against forming a coalition
-
The Rose Field: a ‘nail-biting’ end to The Book of Dust seriesThe Week Recommends Philip Pullman’s superb new novel brings the trilogy to a ‘fitting’ conclusion
-
Senate votes to kill Trump’s Brazil tariffSpeed Read Five Senate Republicans joined the Democrats in rebuking Trump’s import tax
-
Border Patrol gets scrutiny in court, gains power in ICESpeed Read Half of the new ICE directors are reportedly from DHS’s more aggressive Customs and Border Protection branch
-
Shutdown stalemate nears key pain pointsSpeed Read A federal employee union called for the Democrats to to stand down four weeks into the government standoff
-
Trump vows new tariffs on Canada over Reagan adspeed read The ad that offended the president has Ronald Reagan explaining why import taxes hurt the economy
-
NY attorney general asks public for ICE raid footageSpeed Read Rep. Dan Goldman claims ICE wrongly detained four US citizens in the Canal Street raid and held them for a whole day without charges
-
Trump’s huge ballroom to replace razed East WingSpeed Read The White House’s east wing is being torn down amid ballroom construction
-
Trump expands boat strikes to Pacific, killing 5 moreSpeed Read The US military destroyed two more alleged drug smuggling boats in international waters
-
Trump demands millions from his administrationSpeed Read The president has requested $230 million in compensation from the Justice Department for previous federal investigations
