Posted on 03/08/2018 4:45:59 PM PST by Mariner
President Donald Trump has agreed to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un by this May, South Korea's national adviser announced at the White House Thursday evening. He had briefed the president on a message from Kim earlier in the day.
The South Korean envoy said that in his recent talks with Kim, the North Korean leader had expressed an eagerness to meet with Trump as soon as possible.
He said that Kim had said he was committed to denuclearization, suspending more missile tests, and had agreed that U.S.-South Korean joint military exercises the North objects to must continue.
The dramatic disclosure came after Trump told reporters Thursday afternoon to expect a major announcement from South Korea.
That word from the president comes after a South Korean delegation met with top national security officials at the White House complex earlier in the day.
After Trump ducked into the White House briefing room to tease the announcement, ABC News' Jonathan Karl ran into Trump himself who told Karl the announcement was going to be a big deal.
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
Trump won everything he wanted. Kim will be given a chance to save face.
Do you work for CNN or are you just auditioning?
You cracked the code. You are well adept at 7d chess.
TARIFFS WORK!
Trump pressures China with tariffs.
China pressures North Korea.
Korea de-nukes.
I do not think it is worth having any belief yet about whether Kim Jong-Un will or will not cooperate to the point of an ironclad verifiable and enforceable deal that ends NK’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
We simply can’t know what his real intentions are at this point. It is certainly a promising opening, well worth pursuing. I think that is all that can be said about it at this time.
btw, for decades the bi-partisan US policy has been firmly set that the USA should not engage in direct bi-lateral negotiations with NK (obviously Jimmy Carter took it upon himself to violate this understanding during the Clinton admin. for the fake deal he “negotiated”). This was because we always considered it crucial to involve them in negotiations with and commitments to China, Russia, Japan, and South Korea in a multi-power setting, so that they would not just try to play the US off against the other powers, and so that they would not get the “prestige” of direct talks with the US before they were really ready and willing to come seriously to the bargaining table. I certainly trust POTUS Trump to drive a great bargain for the USA, but I hope that the US govt has reason to know NK is very serious and not just playing another game here. Because they have played many games in the past. Giving them the “prestige” of direct talks with POTUS and then having them back away from any credible deal would really suck. That would be a kind of win for Kim Jong-Un (he gets to play with the Superpower on the world stage but doesn’t actually give up anything). Hopefully the sanctions are biting hard enough this time that he does not want to try to play that game. We shall see.
Imagine if Churchill went to Munich instead of Chamberlien. Would WW2 have been averted? Or at leasts its total devastating and long lasting effects?
There is a possible of danger of Trump falling into the Chamberlien trap, but our VSG Potus is also a student of history and knows that NK might be stalling for time or trying to deceive, or is throwing in the towel.
Let us hope that God Almight guides the President’s hand and voice during this upcoming negotiations. This is a momentus moment to be certain for Iran is watching as well as others. If the Obama administration had not overthrown Libya all of this might be a bit easier, who knows.
This is a good thing...I think it was Churchill who said that “..talk talk is better than war-war...” I agree. Of course I remember December 7th too and that Japan talk-talked us into a surprise attack. The world is a dangerous place but Trump is wise to enter the underworld to fight the dragons for us. Let us hope he emerges victorious...
Not sure I like the idea of the US president and the NK dictator being put on as equals symbolically. Hopefully something good can come of this but it may have been better through a lower ranking official meeting with UN.
Yep... Here's just one scenario: Kim proposes the same terms of "Iranian deal" that he knows Trump rejected but the UN, EU et al like or accept as the best possible solution that could have been reached. Who'll be "isolated" then?
Tomorrow is only a potential.
I’ve said above that I have great confidence in what POTUS will seek to do with this process.
I’m not at all concerned that it will end up in some Chamberlain style “peace for our time” b.s piece of paper. Trump, Kelly, and Mattis would not allow that. If there is a deal it will be serious and historic, I am confident of that with our current leadership.
BUT I don’t think we know what Kim Jong-Un’s real intentions are yet, whether he really can be brought to make the “historic deal” or not. It’s not our leadership I’m concerned about. It’s that we can’t know what game Kim Jong-Un is really playing until the process plays out. But I do agree with anyone who thinks that POTUS Trump has Kim exactly where he wants him. It’s just Kim’s rationality and judgment that I’m unsure about.
We shall see.
Hopefully, we shall.
Sun Tsu is a great guide for these questions.
But that's the entire idea - the "equalizer", Kim is no longer a "rocketman" — he is an equal, he stood up to big bully after making a "meaningful" offer of peace and disarmament... Not exactly USA - USSR / Reagan - Gorbachev.
Thanks. It's on TV, right ?
We certainly won’t have any repeat of Jimmy Carter’s #FakeNews fake deal that proved to be much worse than no deal.
We can be quite sure that the Trump admin. will not fall into that kind of crap.
The question is whether Kim Jong-Un is truly ready to deal in a fundamental way. It is quite possible that his own mind is not made up on that, and that he is just doing an exploratory process. Will he really be willing to negotiate away his nuke and missile programs once and for all, in a way that is completely verifiable and enforceable? It is possible that he doesn’t know the answer to that yet... OR.... (1) he may know he really is ready to deal, or (2) he may know that he really is not going to give up much but he wants to play out the process.
What he won’t get is a lot of US concessions ala Jimmy Carter unless he really does end his programs.
Not so. I'm excited, and I assume no such thing. I doubt I'm alone in that.
I’m not excited yet, but feel free to be as excited as you like....
Thank you. And you feel free to be as unexcited as you like. :-P
I enjoyed reading your post
Yes, that has to be one of the more likely scenarios if Kim Jong-Un is not truly ready to make the complete concessions. He would storm away from the negotiations, publicizing to the world that he offered to accept essentially the same deal that Iran already made with the previous US admin.
Under that scenario, NK would try to rally “world” opinion (and especially South Korean, UN, China and Russsia, etc.) to his side in favor of such a b.s. deal. That won’t really help him vs. POTUS Trump, but it certainly could have been effective against most of the squishes in US leadership over recent decades.
No matter WHAT the information or WHO the source.
While your statement is obvious and should be common knowledge, most people believe the exact opposite.
And a better test perhaps of our sincerity. We are coming off two decades of Globalist Octopus Foriegn Policies. Granted, the Pueblo incident occurred before the globalist push got off the ground. What a canard the last century was. Thousand of US citizens die to save a socialist Europe from a communist Europe. Thousands of Russian citizens die to save a Free Market Europe from Fascist Europe. At least the Korea standoff kinda makes sense, but we are still talking Koreans fighting Koreans, which is silly.
ok, sorry, I should have said “seems to be” assuming, since others I have read tonight seem to think this is super close to a real and final deal. I’m not saying it is or is not close behind the scenes, I just think that no one in the public can yet know what this really signifies. But I am glad to see POTUS in the driver’s seat, with MSM types waving and whining in the rear view mirror.
No, we don’t know what his intentions are, but that aside, as I understand it the meeting/s are without pre-conditions which is probably wise.
Scott Adams had a periscope or blog article a while back discussing the NK/SK issue and suggested that there be a 100 year plan for reunification. Sounds plausible as no one today needs to get their panties in a wad as the timeline is so far out, but it does show a road to eventual peace and prosperity. It was an interesting idea as far as ideas go.
We here in the US are under no illusion about NK. I am sure that one of POTUSVSG bargining chips will be a peace treaty to replace the current armistice. That would be a forward and good thing. Declare peace and move on to other things. As to what happens to US presence in SK after that I do not know.
We assume NK has nuclear weapons and probably the means to deliver them. That is an issue that needs to be dealt with. As to why now, why the move to the table? Perhaps its the 100K plus Chinese troops sitting on NK’s northern border right now armed and ready for bear. Perhaps the Panda and decided to give NK the paw. Perhaps the issue of Panda trade is more important than NK’s toys. I do not know and can only surmise based on opinions on the interwebs...
All in All it is a good day for President Trump. His good cop, bad cop strategy seems to have worked. At least there is a meeting and that is something anyway. What happens remains to be seen. But really, who wants war? Us old soldiers don’t want it. The new soldiers are tired of it and the future sons and daughters should never know of it.
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