Victor Cha Predicts Nuclear Deal with North Korea By Christmas and USFK Troop Withdrawals

Long time Korea analyst Victor Cha is making some bold predictions:

But there is bigger storm brewing behind these dark clouds that is threatening to the core of the U.S.-South Korea alliance. It has three components. The first is a nuclear deal with North Korea that is almost certain before Christmas now that John Bolton, the most influential voice in the Hanoi summit’s collapse, is out of the White House. This deal will probably not be a good one, in that its scope will be limited mostly to the Yongbyon nuclear facility; it will not be verifiable; and the U.S. will give too much in lifting sanctions. 

But both presidents Moon Jae-in and Donald Trump, who have both staked so much of their credibility on a deal with Kim, will not just accept a suboptimal deal, but will declare with it an end to hostilities on the Korean Peninsula in the form of a peace declaration. (……)

The perfect storm in the winter of 2019-2020, therefore, is a peace deal with North Korea and a failed cost-sharing negotiation that causes Trump to act on his beliefs. Specifically, his anger over Seoul’s refusal to pay no more than a fraction of the demand, coupled with an end-of-war declaration, will cause Trump to act on his 30-year long instinct to draw down or fully withdraw forces from South Korea. As ludicrous as this scenario may sound to experts, Trump would boast that the deal with North Korea is the “best deal ever” with his good friend Kim Jong-un; that he has ended the Korean War; and that he can now “bring the boys home” because there is peace in South Korea and the “ungrateful” South Koreans do not want to pay for U.S. troops. Moreover, he will tell his political base during the campaign that this move is saving money wasted on foreigners and therefore he is putting “America first.”

Chosun Ilbo

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