Key Points – Congressional ratification of the bilateral trade agreements with Vietnam and Laos will complete the long-delayed normalization process with these two former U.S. enemies. – Bilateral trade agreements are part of standard international practice and should not be confused with multilateral structures such as APEC, NAFTA, or the WTO. – As normal relations between the U.S. and Southeast Asia continue to develop, cold war thinking resonates less and less, even among veterans and Asian-Americans.