Category: US Government

The newly appointed U.S. Secretary of of Defense is in Seoul and he has quite a full plate of issues to discuss with his ROK counterparts:

U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper arrived in South Korea on Thursday for talks that are expected to focus on a series of requests Washington has been making to Seoul, including a greater financial contribution to the cost of stationing American troops here.

Also expected to be on the agenda for Esper’s talks with South Korean Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo are the U.S. initiative to secure the shipping routes in the Strait of Hormuz and Washington’s wish to get a military information-sharing pact between the South and Japan renewed.

Esper landed at Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, 70 kilometers south of Seoul, from Mongolia for a two-day visit as part of his five-nation tour of the Asia-Pacific region, which includes stops in Australia, New Zealand and Japan, according to defense ministry officials. It is his first overseas trip since taking office last month.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but trying to get the ROK to pay significantly more for US troop upkeep will be extremely challenging. Also getting the ROK to contribute any serious naval commitment to the Strait of Hormuz will likely be challenging as well considering the relatively good relationship the ROK has with Iran. The ROK could look at this issue as that Iran is not messing with their energy shipments so why give them excuse to by supporting the U.S. on this issue?

Other issues to be discussed is the GSOMIA that South Korea has threatened to end with Japan over the current trade dispute and Seoul OPCON transfer. I would think the OPCON transfer should not be contentious considering Seoul wants the transfer, but the GSOMIA issue may be challenging.

Like I said the Secretary Esper has a full plate working these challenging issues with the ROK.

This is a good idea to not only discourage travel to North Korea, but also put a process in place to detect a intelligence collection threat that could be coming to the U.S.:

Any South Korean who visited North Korea after March 2011 will no longer be able to visit the United States visa-free, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The U.S. government said it is putting new restrictions on its Visa Waiver Program, or VWP, for citizens of 38 countries including South Korea who have visited Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia or North Korea. 

Under the VWP, South Korean citizens are eligible to visit the United States visa-free for up to 90 days as long as they register through the Electronic System for Travel Authorization at least three days in advance. 

This is no longer an option for South Koreans – or citizens of the other 37 countries – who have visited the North. While they will be allowed to visit the U.S., they will have to obtain a visa from a U.S. consular office.

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

I am not surprised that the U.S. government would not side with anyone over this dispute. I would think the U.S. government may look at this as why should it put its relationship with Japan at risk because the Moon administration over reached in its Japan bashing for domestic political reasons and is now paying the consequences.:

The United States takes the tensions between Korea and Japan very seriously but cannot play a “mediating role,” according to the chair of the Korean National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs Committee who said the message was relayed to him by the U.S. State Department point man for East Asian affairs. 

Rep. Yoon Sang-hyun, a third-term lawmaker of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party, met with David R. Stilwell, the new U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, Wednesday evening amid the diplomatic spat over Japan’s recent export restrictions on Korea.  

Yoon told the JoongAng Ilbo over the phone that Stilwell told him that the United States “could not take one side or the other because taking one side means losing the other.” 

Stilwell then conveyed, according to Yoon, that Washington “encouraged its two friends,” Seoul and Tokyo, “to resolve the issue through dialogue.” 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

If the New York Times report is to believed, there are members of the Trump administration advocating for a “freeze deal” which is really the first steps towards a “pretend denuclearization” deal with North Korea:

Washington’s goal in talks with North Korea remains its “final, fully verified denuclearization,” the U.S. State Department said Monday, denying speculation that the Trump administration was considering an incremental deal to freeze Pyongyang’s nuclear activity. 

A spokesman gave the response to a question from Yonhap on a New York Times report on Monday that said a splinter was widening within the administration over how to approach Pyongyang. The article said senior diplomatic officials are leaning towards an incremental approach as negotiations between the two countries resume.

The State Department’s Special Representative for North Korea Policy, Stephen Biegun, also denied the report, calling it “pure speculation.” 

According to the piece, U.S. officials are discussing a plan that could involve North Korea first closing down nuclear facilities capable of producing fissile material, and in return the United States could provide sanctions relief.  

This, in effect, would resemble the proposal that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un brought to his second summit with U.S. President Donald Trump in Hanoi, Vietnam, last February. Kim offered to shut down the Yongbyon nuclear complex in return for relief from five sets of economic sanctions imposed by the United States.

Under this possible deal for Yongbyon – or a larger one reportedly being considered by U.S. officials that would freeze activity at the nearby Kangson uranium facility as well – the North would no longer produce additional nuclear material, but none of its existing nuclear weapons or stockpiles would be touched. While this would imply de facto acceptance of North Korea’s status as a nuclear state, it could serve as an initial step toward full denuclearization in the future, the report said.

Joong Ang Ilbo

National Security Advisor John Bolton did not mince worlds on what he thought of the New York Times report:

I read this NYT story with curiosity. Neither the NSC staff nor I have discussed or heard of any desire to “settle for a nuclear freeze by NK.” This was a reprehensible attempt by someone to box in the President. There should be consequences. https://t.co/TTRPQkksza

— John Bolton (@AmbJohnBolton) July 1, 2019

It is pretty clear that the New York Times is doing what they can to create strife within President Trump’s foreign policy team.

This statement from Kiron Skinner from the State Department is just bizarre:

Kiron Skinner says the U.S. is fighting a racial war of civilizations pitting the Americans against a non-Caucasian foe in China for the first time.

What about the Pacific War, part of World War II, waged between the U.S. and Japan? So the U.S. State Department’s policy planning director is factually inaccurate. 

Also her being Afro-American may have tinted her lens, putting the situation in a racial perspective. After all it is plausible that the U.S.-China rivalry, now being expressed in a trade war, is a clash of values, not race, as one of my Western friends argues.

On the surface, my friend’s argument may make sense and it looks like Skinner is out of her depth. That is by and large the reaction so far to her remarks at a security forum in Washington in late April, reflecting the “She is wrong but what if she proves right” kind of sentiment. 

Korea Times

How does someone working at the State Department forget about Imperial Japan during World War II? You can make an argument that the U.S. fighting the communist North Koreans and the Chinese during the Korean War was a clash of civilizations.

It is just troubling that this is one of the senior people making policy in the State Department.

Let’s hope that military action is the option of last resort which it appears to currently be considering how much of a chance the Trump administration is giving the Kim regime to change their ways:

 In an interview with “Axios on HBO,” McMaster argues North Korea could directly threaten “the United States, China, Japan, the world” with its nuclear arsenal and could also engage in “nuclear blackmail.”
“This regime could say [if U.S. forces] don’t go off the Korean peninsula, we’re going to threaten the use of nuclear weapons, for example.”
McMaster also raises the prospect of North Korea selling its nuclear secrets, or even weapons, noting Pyongyang “was developing a nuclear weapons program for the Assad regime in Syria.”
He also points to the risk of wider nuclear proliferation in Japan, South Korea and beyond, asking: “If North Korea gets a weapon, who doesn’t?”
Between the lines: North Korea already has a nuclear arsenal, and many experts doubt that leader Kim Jong-un will ever give it up. 
McMaster says the U.S. needs to “prepare for at least the option of the use of military force” to convince Kim to denuclearize. 
The Trump administration has sidelined the so-called “bloody nose strategy,” though, and the president speaks warmly of Kim and his intentions.

Axios

You can read more at the link.

What a horrible deal this would have been if President Trump would have agreed to it:

 U.S. President Donald Trump has said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un wanted to remove only one or two of the five nuclear sites in his country during their summit in Hanoi in February.
Trump made remarks in an interview with Fox News on Sunday (Washington time), reiterating his vow not to allow Iran to have nuclear arms amid heightened military tensions with the Islamic republic.
“When I left Vietnam where we had the summit, I said to Chairman Kim … And I think very importantly I said, look, you are not ready for a deal because he wanted to get rid of one or two sites,” Trump said. 
“But he has five sites … I said what about the other three sites. That is no good,” he added.
The Hanoi summit collapsed as Trump and Kim failed to bridge their gaps over the scope of Pyongyang’s denuclearization and Washington’s sanctions relief. Since then, the bilateral negotiations have hit an impasse.
Trump, however, highlighted that there have not been nuclear and long-range tests amid his administration’s diplomatic efforts.
“They haven’t had any tests over the last two years. It is zero,” he said. 

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but I think President Trump should not be bragging too much about the missile and nuclear test moratorium. The self imposed moratorium Kim Jong-un has already said will end next year if a deal is not struck, just in time for the Presidential election season.

Another US President is heading to South Korea in the coming weeks:

U.S. President Donald Trump will visit South Korea next month for talks with President Moon Jae-in on the denuclearization of North Korea and alliance issues, Moon’s office announced Thursday amid growing concerns about the overall peace process.
Trump plans to visit South Korea in late June as part of his regional trip. He will travel to Osaka, Japan, for the two-day G-20 summit to open on June 28. 
The exact schedule for Trump’s second trip to South Korea as U.S. president remains unannounced. He made a state visit to South Korea in November 2017.
“The two leaders plan to discuss ways for the establishment of a permanent peace regime through the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and the strengthening of the South Korea-U.S. alliance,” Cheong Wa Dae spokesperson, Ko Min-jung, said early Thursday morning (Seoul time).

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It looks like if the the North Koreans want a deal, they are going to have to get one by going through Mike Pompeo first:

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Friday he will continue to lead nuclear talks with North Korea, dismissing the regime’s call for his replacement.   

In a news conference held after a meeting between U.S. and Japanese foreign and defense ministers, Pompeo said “nothing’s changed,” which is viewed as an open dismissal to North Korea’s request for his replacement with a “more mature” negotiator who can better communicate with the North. 

Pompeo said the U.S. continues to work to negotiate and that he is still in charge of the team. 

He said President Trump is obviously in charge of the overall effort, but it will be his team and Special Representative Stephen Biegun who will continue to lead U.S. efforts to achieve what the North Korean leader committed to do in June last year, which was to denuclearize.

KBS World Radio

You can read more at the link, but this seems like a miscalculation by North Korea if they thought President Trump would replace Pompeo.