Nothing a few hotly worded love letters can’t smooth over.
I think Trump has the right approach.
I understand you feel differently.
(One) of us, is wrong.
Maybe.
:)
I'd think the best move is to drop the most dangerous thing we can find on North Korea.
Even if it involves loading the democrats in congress on an airplane and pushing them out the door over Pyongyang.
Watch the China negotiations. NK will become more aggressive as Trump pushes China.
If NK gets to aggressive Trump will punish China.
So, kim has reverted to his mean.
The negotiations are over.
Thanks for the advice Mister back bencher but I’ll stick with Mister Trump on negotiating with anybody. Now please go away.
The author uses lots of loaded language in support of Kim. He misses the point that Trump refuses to play the extortion game that NK has used so successfully in the past. What concessions has Kim made? It is Kim who is negotiating in bad faith.
Two things:
1) I don’t think anyone without top secret clearance has enough info to really evaluate the situation.
2) I would not take advice on NK or any issue from a TDS sufferer like the author.
Trump no longer rewards bad behavior. Kim will find Trump less accommodating and more demanding as Mils options dwindle to COMPLIANCE.
It was bound to happen.
Two immovable objects can quit working to try to move each other, but sooner or later one will again try to move the other.
No entreaties from U.S. leaders are going to change the internally directed course of the dictators in North Korea.
Kim bought some new negotiations with the U.S. with his past provocations and belligerence; he got face-to-face with a U.S. President which none of his predecessors had ever achieved.
The U.S. acted, and still acts, as if they gave Kim nothing, which is a misunderstanding of North Korea internally, and just how important to the regime is it’s own people’s perception of its leader on the world stage. That is not just powerful among the populace, but in keeping control of the levers of government among the elite.
It is right and good that Bolton is helping Trump to not give away anything that the U.S. considers important, regardless of the matter that to Kim he already, at least for a time, got something powerfully important to him.
But the author is essentially right. Whereas Kim thought his provocations had brought Trump to meet with him to make some concessions, none have been made. And whereas Trump thought that Kim was finally a leader willing to make compromises for peace, he wasn’t, and he won’t.
An elephant in the room is sitting in plain site, never admitted, never discussed, never questioned in spite of how it colors all that North Korea does.
Not just the Constitution of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK - North Korea), but that of the Republic of Korea (ROK - South Korea) as well, define their territorial writ as the entire Korean peninsula.
In the ROK Constitution:
Article 3
The territory of the Republic of Korea shall consist of the Korean peninsula and its adjacent
islands. (found at: http://www.moleg.go.kr/english/korLawEng?pstSeq=54794)
In the DPRK Constitution:
Article 1
“The Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea is an independent socialist state representing the interests of all the Korean people.” (as found at: https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Peoples_Republic_of_Korea_1998.pdf)
As far as the dictators of North Korea are concerned, the U.S. has been at war with KOREA (all of it) and the leaders of North Korea are the leaders of all Korea. For that reason it is only the U.S. that matters in negotiations with North Korea, as far as the state and status of military and security affairs. The rest is an internal affair and not central to the North Korea-U.S. relationship, as far as North Korea is concerned. Politically, as far as North Korea is concerned the governments of South Korea, all of them, have been and remain puppets of the U.S., and will be washed away once North Korea and the U.S. can make peace.
The North Korean position, as demanded by its perception of its own legitimacy, as enshrined in its constitution, can never be reconciled to the compromises that would be necessarily demanded by the U.S., and any such comprises made by the U.S. (in error in my view) would consequently compromise its commitments to South Korea.
Unless some great internal compromise occurs within the power elite of North Korea, or that elite implodes and creates a power vacuum in North Korea, the U.S. and North Korea will remain unmovable objects that cannot, by the demands of their respective interests, give each other what they want.
Kim has just one thing on his mind - staying on top.
I wonder just long it will be before the starving troops turn on their masters...
Sure, Kim wants flour, rice, oil, corn tortillas and egg in his beer, but does he want peace..?? Probably not..
I'm past skeptical to cynical.
In September of 2017, Trump and Xi publicly signed banking sanctions cutting off the DPRK from all financial institutions that use American or Chinese banks. The only people on earth more politically and economically isolated than North Korea are the North Sentinelese. Except the North Sentinelese have fewer enemies.
China knows Trump can respond if they are caught officially helping the DPRK under the table. For the most part China appears to be holding up its end of the agreement. This is slowly strangling the North Korean economy and there is nothing they can do about it. This takes time, and for now, Trump thinks he has the time.
John Bolton & Mike Pompeo sabotaged a good deal that President Trump was working on.
They are saboteurs & wreckers & threaten the Trump presidency.
Maybe Trump actually does reevaluate his NK strategy as he goes.
North Korea exists because China exists. This is as much about Trump’s negotiations with China as it is about his negotiations with Kim. Kim came to the table because Trump squeezed China to cut them off. Once done Kim came to the table. Trump liked what he heard, let up a little with China and Kim started backing off to test if Trump would squeeze China again. Right now Trump should be squeezing China again to cut them of totally again to show Kim that Trump he is not Carter, Clinton or Bush and the stick rather than the carrot is his go to tool.That should get him back to the table again.