It looks like President Trump is making it very clear that there will be no long drawn out denuclearization process with North Korea like we have seen with past failed deals:
President Moon Jae-in and U.S. President Donald Trump talk during their summit at the White House, Washington, D.C., Wednesday. / Yonhap
U.S. President Donald Trump mentioned the possibility of delaying his planned summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in a meeting with President Moon Jae-in at the White House, Wednesday.
Trump said “all-in-one” denuclearization would be better than an incremental process with incentives, and it should be done over a very short period of time.
“There are certain conditions that we want. And I think we’ll get those conditions. And if we don’t, we won’t have the meeting,” Trump said. “Frankly, there’s a chance to be a great, great meeting for North Korea and a great meeting for the world. If it doesn’t happen, maybe it will happen later.”
He added, “It may not work out for June 12.”
But the U.S. president assured Kim of the safety of his regime, adding South Korea, China and Japan would invest in the North to help make the country “great” if it follows through on denuclearization. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but I agree with President Trump that this should be an all or nothing deal for Kim Jong-un. The North Koreans this time should not receive massive amounts of aid and other incentives for little to nothing in return. Instead they should demonstrate irreversible intent to denuclearize which the dog and pony show for the closure of the nuclear test site is not. For example if nuclear material begins to get shipped out of the country and their nuclear plant is dismantled that is evidence of irreversible intent to denuclearize.
It appears that President Trump is determined to end the North Korean issue one way or another in his first term as US President according to Senator Lindsey Graham:
This EPA file photo shows U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham. (Yonhap)
U.S. President Donald Trump wants to end the North Korean nuclear crisis during his current term, and will likely use military means if diplomacy fails, an American senator said Sunday.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) made the remark on Fox News, citing his conversation with the president three days earlier.
“He says he’s going to end this conflict within his first term, that every other president has been played,” Graham said. Trump’s term ends in early 2021.
“President Trump told me three days ago that he wants to end this in a win-win way,” the senator continued. “He thinks that’s possible, but if they pull out, they play him, that we’re going to end North Korea’s threat to the American homeland in his first term and I’ll let you surmise as to what that might look like.” [Yonhap]
President Moon Jae-in (3rd from L) walks to an airplane at Seoul Airport in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, on May 21, 2018, to depart to Washington D.C. for a summit meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump the following day. The summit will focus on ways to denuclearize North Korea ahead of a summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Singapore on June 12. (Yonhap)
It looks like President Moon will be able to personally make his case to President Trump to get on the peace train and pretend trust that the Kim regime is going to denuclearize:
Chung Eui-yong, left, Blue House national security adviser, shakes hands with John Bolton, his U.S. counterpart, on Friday at the White House. [YONHAP]President Moon Jae-in will meet U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House on May 22 to discuss the upcoming North Korea-U.S. summit, the Blue House said on Saturday. The date and location of the high-stakes meeting between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Trump have yet to be announced.
Moon is expected to share the detailed outcome of his summit with Kim last month and convey the North Korean leader’s intentions to Trump. The presidential office said in a statement that the two leaders would “have an in-depth discussion over ways to make sure the North-U.S. summit will be successful on the back of achievements forged in the April 27 summit.”
On the upcoming Moon-Trump meeting, the White House said the two “will continue their close coordination on developments regarding the Korean Peninsula following the April 27 inter-Korean summit,” and discuss “Trump’s upcoming meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.” [Joong Ang Ilbo]
John Kelly strongly — and successfully — dissuaded Trump in February from ordering the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from the Korean Peninsula, @NBCNews reports. This fits with accounts I heard about Trump throwing papers in the Oval, yelling about S.Koreahttps://t.co/JYqiqQHaqjpic.twitter.com/QBo6xHWu5K
To me it appears that President Moon Jae-in is attempting to play to President Trump’s ego:
South Korea’s president said Monday that his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end the crisis over North Korea’s nuclear weapons.
Moon Jae-in made the comments during a Cabinet meeting three days after his momentous summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
“President Trump should win the Nobel Peace Prize. The only thing we need is peace,” he said in remarks confirmed by the presidential office.
Trump is planning to hold his own summit with Kim in coming weeks, although the venue and date have not been announced. [Stars & Stripes]
You can read more at the link, but if the North Koreans do not commit to real denuclearization President Trump could sink the entire facade that is going on right now. President Moon may be hoping that the possibility of winning a Nobel Peace Prize just like Trump’s rival Barack Obama did, may be enough to get him to play along with the current facade as well. Time will tell and we will all just have to wait and see what happens.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s televised summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Friday was spectacularly effective as pageantry aimed at South Koreans fearful of a U.S. attack on North Korea — and spectacularly empty in terms of meaningful commitment by the North to denuclearization. In fact, everything Kim put on the table was designed to reaffirm North Korea’s status as a nuclear weapons state and dilute Chinese and South Korean support for sanctions. Many veterans of negotiations with North Korea worry that Kim is now getting ready to play the United States. While the Trump administration’s tough sanctions no doubt had some role in pushing the North toward this summitry, one can also imagine exactly how this was a scenario the North itself sought from the beginning. [Foreign Policy]
Green then goes on to write a satire email from Vice Marshall Kim Jong Gak, director of the Political Bureau, Korean People’s Army to Kim Jong-un on their peace strategy. Here is an excerpt from the email:
You will pledge seemingly historic commitments that are all unverifiable and easily reversed, many of which we have deployed successfully in past negotiations. These include your commitment (like your father’s and grandfather’s) to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, your pledge to join the global quest for denuclearization as the other nuclear weapons states have pledged to do under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, a promise not to transfer nuclear weapons to third parties, a no-first use pledge, and a promise to halt testing and to shut down our nuclear test site at Punggye-ri (for added drama, you might invite inspectors to the facility).
These commitments all parrot the aspirations of the current members of the nuclear weapons club and will thus confirm our membership in that club as we negotiate arms control with the Americans as a fellow nuclear weapons state. We, of course, made no commitment to cease production and deployment of our deterrent. We can easily reverse all these steps later, at the time of our choosing, yet already many in the imperialist and puppet media are proclaiming these meaningless declarations on your part to be a historic breakthrough.
I recommend reading the whole thing at the link, but as I have been saying since this whole peace initiative began, the Kim regime was conducting a facade. The North Koreans are very good at executing facades and Kim Jong-un has shown a particularly great talent for it, so much so that he has most in the international media believing every word he is saying.
The short term goal of this facade is to create a perception of progress towards peace and denuclearization on the peninsula to justify South Korea reopening the Kaesong Industrial Park, restarting joint tourism projects, and other inter-Korean cooperation initiatives that will be huge cash cows for the Kim regime. In return the Kim regime will pretend to denuclearize and make other commitments that can easily be reversed at a time of their choosing.
The Kim regime’s long term goal backed by China is to get the United States out of South Korea. That is why there has been such a strategic messaging emphasis on a peace treaty to end the Korean War. If there is a peace treaty South Korean leftists could argue why US forces are still needed in South Korea? The Kim regime’s even longer term goal is to separate the US from Japan as well with their surrogates in the media already pushing ideas of removing the US nuclear umbrella for Japan as part of any denuclearization agreement.
The wild card in all of this is President Donald Trump. South Korea, China, Russia, and most in the international community are willing to pretend denuclearization and a lasting peace is happening. Will the United States? For all we know President Trump could be conducting his own facade. For the US to get international consensus to conduct any strike against North Korea all options will have to be exhausted. Since this supposed peace process has began President Trump has been saying all the right things and being very reasonable even agreeing to meet with Kim Jong-un.
Going into the negotiations President Trump could be very solid about stringent inspections to ensure denuclearization compliance. If the Kim regime does not agree to stringent inspections or agrees and then plays their old tricks against inspectors than President Trump could have his rationale to strike North Korea. Or maybe President Trump is willing to go along with the facade to get a Nobel Peace Prize like his rival Barack Obama did and then let some other future US president deal with the consequences when Pyongyang ultimately reneges on the deal. Time will tell but the next 1-2 years should continue to be interesting times on the peninsula as everyone involved continues to play their role in this great facade.
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]
A sign with Donald Trump's face at the demonstrations in support of disgraced former South Korean president Park Geun-hye: "All Koreans love USA. Please save Korea's ex-president PGH" https://t.co/5umsrnQbLPpic.twitter.com/0xWtFcwGU0
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