A fan of President Trump’s decision to stop joint wargames against North Korea is Guam Governor Eddie Calvo:
Guam Gov. Eddie Calvo meets with President Trump on Air Force One during a refueling stop at Andersen Air Force Base early on Wednesday morning local time.
Gov. Eddie Calvo met with President Donald Trump as the president made a pit stop at Andersen Air Force Base early Wednesday morning.
Trump was on his return trip from Singapore after a historic summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. (……)
“The war games are very expensive. We pay for a big majority of them. We fly in bombers from Guam,” Trump said after meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jung Un.
“I said — when I first started, I said, ‘Where do the bombers come from?’ ‘Guam. Nearby.’ I said, ‘Oh, great, nearby. Where’s nearby?’ ‘Six and a half hours.’ Six and a half hours — that’s a long time for these big massive planes to be flying to South Korea to practice and then drop bombs all over the place, and then go back to Guam. I know a lot about airplanes; it’s very expensive. And I didn’t like it.”
Calvo said he supports Trump’s decision to halt bomber flights from Andersen. Calvo said the exercises were “threatening,” and put Guam in North Korea’s crosshairs. [Guam PDN]
You can read more at the link, but Governor Calvo as was reported to have told Trump that the people of Guam breathed a “big sigh of relief” after the summit since the island has been repeatedly threatened over the years by North Korea for missile attacks.
It looks like President Trump is starting his own charm offensive before his summit with Kim Jong-un:
U.S. President Donald Trump praised North Korean leader Kim Jong-un Tuesday for being “very open” and “very honorable” ahead of their potential meeting in May or June.
Trump made the remark as he prepares to sit down with Kim to talk about the denuclearization of the regime.
“We are going to be having a meeting with Kim Jong-un, and that will be very soon,” Trump said at the start of talks with French President Emmanuel Macron at the White House. “We have been told directly that they would like to have the meeting as soon as possible and we think that’s a great thing for the world.”
The North Korean leader has expressed a commitment to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula, and Trump has agreed to meet Kim in May or early June.
The two sides have been having “very good” discussions, Trump said. “Kim Jong-un — he really has been very open and, I think, very honorable from everything we’re seeing.” [Yonhap]
The Trump administration may be sending a message to North Korea by sending a well respected US Navy admiral to possibly be the next US ambassador to South Korea instead of Australia as previously announced:
Admiral Harry Harris
U.S. Navy Admiral Harry Harris, who was formerly nominated as ambassador to Australia, may be re-nominated as the ambassador to South Korea, according to media reports, Wednesday.
The U.S. and South Korean governments have not confirmed the nomination, but Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop noted the change, Wednesday, after being informed by U.S. Acting Secretary of State John Sullivan a day earlier, according to an AP report.
“While we would have welcomed Admiral Harris here as the ambassador to Australia, we understand that there are significant challenges for the United States on the Korean Peninsula,” she was quoted as saying.
U.S. President Donald Trump nominated Harris to be ambassador to Australia in February.
Harris, 61, reportedly planned to retire this year, but decided to take the post as ambassador to Australia based on his deep interest in bilateral relations between the countries. He is known to have less experience in dealing with South Korea. [Korea Times]
It just seems to me that someone who is a failed nuclear negotiator with North Korea partly responsible for the current mess the United States is in; probably should not be the lecturing the current Trump administration on how to handle this issue:
This file photo shows former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Christopher Hill. (Yonhap)
A former senior U.S. diplomat slammed the Donald Trump administration Wednesday for what he called a lack of recognition of the South Korea-U.S. alliance in the face of North Korea’s growing nuclear threat.
Christopher Hill, who served in the 2000s as Washington’s chief envoy to the six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear program, said he would like to see a greater commitment from the administration toward the alliance.
“This is not about a series of transactions. This is about a relationship that has served us well, and served the Republic of Korea well,” he said during a forum on the North Korean threat, referring to South Korea by its official name.
If Washington can provide such reassurances to Seoul, “that gives us more scope to really go after the North Koreans,” Hill said.
Trump has often linked security cooperation with trade issues. He has pressured South Korea to address its trade surplus with the U.S. and shoulder a larger burden of the cost of stationing American troops there. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but Mr. Hill’s also wants the Trump administration to do more to get China to denuclearize North Korea.
This article from CNN sounds like another attempt to create tension between President Trump and John Kelly. It is pretty clear that there are people in the White House that do not like the order Kelly has brought and accusing him of taking shots at Ivanka Trump could be attempt to get the President to remove him:
The decision to send her to South Korea did not sit well with some senior officials in the West Wing, two people familiar with the situation told CNN. The nuclear threat from North Korea and the tensions already boiling across the Korean Peninsula made any US delegation far more than ceremonial.
Kelly was not initially enthusiastic about her South Korea trip, a person close to President Donald Trump said, largely because the visit to the Korean Peninsula was far more than a typical Olympic closing ceremony.
“This isn’t like going to Italy. The stakes are far higher and more complex,” a person close to the President said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive subject of the Trump family.
The concerns of Kelly and others about Ms. Trump — who has little experience in government or diplomacy, and hasn’t played a role in discussions about North Korea — were aired in private, according to people familiar with the matter. Kelly was advised by those closest to him that it would be a losing battle to oppose Ivanka as the delegation’s leader. [CNN]
You can read more at the link, but it wasn’t like she was leading a team to negotiate with the North Koreans. She was sent to attend the closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics which is something she more than capable of doing. It seems to me that Ivanka Trump was best person to send to South Korea to off set the positive media coverage that Kim Yo-jong received during her visit to South Korea. From everything reported Ivanka Trump had a great trip and received positive publicity from the visit.
Here is what US Senator Duckworth had to say recently about her trip to South Korea:
Senator Tammy Duckworth
When Senator Tammy Duckworth returned from a recent trip to South Korea and Japan, she brought back a sobering message: “Americans simply are not in touch with just how close we are to war on the Korean peninsula.” In a speech at Georgetown University, she laid out the U.S. military maneuvers over the past several months—including a nuclear–powered submarine heading to South Korea, the movement of three aircraft carriers to the Western Pacific, and the Army testing out “mobilization centers” for deploying troops and training soldiers to fight in tunnels like those beneath North Korea—that inform this worry. In an interview with me, she said the U.S. military seems to be operating with the attitude that a conflict “‘will probably happen, and we better be ready to go.’”
The Illinois Democrat believes this is primarily a response to the rhetoric coming out of Washington, where members of the Trump administration have repeatedlythreatened to use force if diplomacy fails to prevent North Korea from acquiring the capability to strike the United States with nuclear missiles. And even though the administration continues to emphasize its preference for a diplomatic solution, “I feel like the military hears the war-mongering tendencies coming out of the executive branch and many in the legislative branch and have seen the writing on the wall and they said, ‘Holy cow. We’re more likely to be called on now than we were two years ago,’” Duckworth said.
“I know that the military’s job is to be fully ready for any contingency, and I commend them and support them for continuing to prepare for war. I’m not saying that they’re going to war,” Duckworth said at Georgetown. “But it’s painfully clear from my visit to the [Korean Demilitarized Zone] and these movements that I am seeing that we shouldn’t ignore the signals that our military is sending with these actions. We know that the North Koreans and our allies in the region are certainly paying attention.”
Duckworth, a retired lieutenant colonel who lost her legs during the Iraq War when insurgents downed her helicopter, took the trip along with Ruben Gallego, a Democratic congressman from Arizona and a fellow Iraq War veteran, earlier this month. The two met with top South Korean and Japanese diplomats and defense officials as well as commanders of U.S. forces in South Korea. Duckworth said that she found “all three of the major military actors—American, Korean, and Japanese—…more ready [for war] than they’ve ever been.” [The Atlantic]
You can read more at the link, but I find it interesting that Senator Duckworth is more worried about the rhetoric coming out Washington, but makes no mention of the rhetoric and actions backing it up coming out of Pyongyang that is firing missiles over Japan, setting off nuclear bombs, threatening to destroy Guam and other US cities, and even murdering someone with a nerve agent weapon in a busy international airport.
Considering all of this the US military would be derelict in its duties if it did not train for a possible military contingency in response to North Korean actions. However from reading the article it appears that Senator Duckworth would prefer to have an untrained military so the Trump administration could not use it as an option to stop North Korea’s nuclear and ICBM programs if needed.
Via a reader tip comes news that Chelsea Manning is going to run for the US Senate in Maryland:
Chelsea Manning
Chelsea Manning, the former Army intelligence analyst convicted of leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks, confirmed Sunday that she’s running in Maryland for a Senate seat.
“Yup, we’re running for Senate,” Manning tweeted three days after she filed her statement of candidacy with the Federal Election Commission.
The tweet also included a campaign video indicating her intention to run in the 2018 Maryland Democratic primary and was followed by a tweet seeking donations to her campaign.
She is running for the seat held by two-term Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin. [Fox News]
I have a hard time believing the Democrats would allow a traitor and convicted felon like Manning to get elected to the Senate. Manning is basically a Cindy Sheehan like figure who thinks she is more important than what she really is. When Sheehan ran for Congress she was crushed by the Democrats, I expect the same thing will happen to Manning considering she has already used up her political usefulness.
I am not sure if the Pentagon is ready to sign up for this yet because removing US military dependents even gradually from South Korea would cause huge concern in South Korea:
Senator Lindsey Graham
Sen. Lindsey Graham said Sunday that he believes it’s time to start moving the families of American military personnel out of South Korea as North Korea pushes the U.S. closer to a military conflict.
Graham, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he will also urge the Pentagon not to send any more dependents to South Korea.
“It’s crazy to send spouses and children to South Korea, given the provocation of North Korea. South Korea should be an unaccompanied tour,” the South Carolina Republican said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” ”So, I want them to stop sending dependents, and I think it’s now time to start moving American dependents out of South Korea.” [Stars & Stripes via a reader tip]
You can read the rest at the link, but I think the South Korean government would be highly concerned if dependents are removed because it could be taken as a sign that the US is preparing for military action even if that is not the case. Additionally will foreign investors keep their money invested in South Korea if they feel a potentially destructive war appears to be coming with the US removing dependents? This is why I think the Pentagon will be very careful about if and when they remove dependents from South Korea.
