Tag: Donald Trump

I think President Trump couldn’t care less what the Kim regime thinks of what he says:

North Korea threatened “merciless punishment” on U.S. President Donald Trump over “foolish remarks” on Sunday, two days before his state visit to South Korea.

The Rodong Sinmun, the main newspaper and organ of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK), published a commentary accusing Trump of “seriously stimulating” North Korea with his words.

Trump kicked off his Asia tour in Japan earlier Sunday. He’s scheduled to land in South Korea on Tuesday for a summit with President Moon Jae-in during his two-day visit.

Trump has engaged in a war of words with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, referring to Kim as “Little Rocket Man” and threatening to “totally destroy” North Korea.

In the report carried by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), Rodong Sinmun argued Trump must heed assertions from other U.S. experts that he must “halt the reckless blackmail and take hands off the Korean affairs.”

“Nobody can predict when Trump does a reckless act. The only and one way for checking his rash act is to tame him with absolute physical power,” the report said in English. “If the U.S. misjudges (North Korea’s) toughest will and dares to act recklessly, the latter will be compelled to deal a resolute and merciless punishment upon the former with the mobilisation of all forces. The U.S. has no energy to prevent it. Then its regret is too late.”  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but I am really curious to see if President Trump will use this trip to South Korea to make a “tear down this wall” type of speech towards North Korea?

It seems the US President has received a very warm welcome in Japan:

Landing in Japan on the first stop of his marathon five-nation tour of Asia, U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday called the nation a “treasured partner” and “crucial ally” of the United States while asserting that “no dictator” and “no regime” should ever underestimate America — a not-so-veiled rebuke of nuclear-armed North Korea.

After paying a solemn visit to Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona Memorial in Hawaii on Friday, Trump on Sunday marked the start of his trip to Asia by disembarking from Air Force One at the U.S. Air Force’s Yokota Air Base in western Tokyo. Cheers erupted as he appeared on stage with his wife, first lady Melania Trump, prompting thousands of U.S. military personnel there to welcome the pair with enthusiastic chants of “USA! USA! USA!”

 “Japan is a treasured partner and crucial ally of the Unites States,” Trump told a packed aircraft hangar after changing into a bomber jacket. “Today we thank them for decades of wonderful friendship between our two nations.”

It was the first visit by Trump to Japan since his astonishing rise to the presidency last year. The trip will give him and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe — touted as one of his best friends among world leaders — a chance to reaffirm their shared strategy of piling “maximum pressure” on the North while also demonstrating anew the strength of the two nations’ alliance.

After delivering his speech, Trump flew to Kasumigaseki Country Club in Saitama Prefecture for two hours of golf diplomacy with Abe — an informal setting that also involved 25-year-old professional golfer Hideki Matsuyama.

Before hitting the links, Abe presented Trump and Matsuyama with white baseball caps, each embroidered with the message “Donald & Shinzo Make Alliance Even Greater.”  [Japan Times]

You can read more at the link, but President Trump gave a nice speech to US troops at Yokota Airbase as well.

Via a reader tip comes this news that President Trump’s first stop in South Korea will be to Camp Humphreys:

U.S. President Donald Trump will visit Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, as the first destination during his visit to South Korea from Nov. 7 to 8, officials said Tuesday.

It will be the first visit of a U.S. president to the headquarters of the Eighth U.S. Army which relocated there in July.

The Eighth Army moved to the post after more than 60 years at Yongsan, central Seoul, as part of the U.S. Department of Defense’s relocation project for U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) following more than a decade of planning since 2003.

Camp Humphreys is the largest U.S. Army Garrison overseas. It occupies 14.68 square kilometers of land ― three times the size of the Yongsan garrison ― with 513 buildings including schools, shops and banks as well as other facilities such as gyms, theaters and a water park for USFK personnel and their families.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but I wonder if 8th Army senior leaders will mention all the anti-US protests, fraud, corruption, delays, and the fact units are moving into incomplete buildings that occurred to get this expansion project complete?  No probably not, but it would be great to see President Trump’s reaction to if he saw pictures like this from a past protest to stop the expansion project:

It will be interesting to see how far these anti-US groups are willing to go to protest President Trump during his visit to South Korea.  I suspect the Moon administration will keep them in check in order to not embarrass themselves during President Trump’s visit, but I guess we will see:

Saturday night was supposed to be a time to celebrate the first anniversary of the massive candlelit protests that eventually helped oust corruption-tainted former President Park Geun-hye. But some anti-U.S. groups used the gathering as an opportunity to promote their own propaganda.

“No Trump, no war,” was one of the key messages shouted at Seoul’s Gwanghwamun Square by some anti-U.S. groups. Led by the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), the country’s second-largest umbrella trade union, they vowed to do all they can to mar U.S. President Donald Trump’s state visit to Korea next month.

They called Trump a threat to peace on the Korean peninsula, saying they will follow him and stage protests during his visit.

Trump is scheduled to meet with his Korean counterpart Moon Jae-in, Nov. 7, and deliver a speech at the National Assembly the following day.

The groups said they plan to stage a protest in front of Cheong Wa Dae when the two are supposed to have dinner there and hold another rally when Trump speaks at the Assembly.

The KCTU has a history of anti-U.S. protests. On Oct. 14, its members gathered near a Busan hotel, where the U.S. Navy held a party to celebrate its 242-year history, chanting messages like “U.S.troops go home!”  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

My latest for @nknewsorg— The Trump administration's ambiguous North Korea policy keeps DPRK-watchers guessing https://t.co/SRiAgigrFP

— Andrei Lankov (@andreilankov) October 31, 2017

Here is the latest criticism from Senator Corker against President Trump:

A U.S. Republican senator called out President Donald Trump again on Sunday, saying the commander-in-chief is hampering diplomatic efforts to resolve the nuclear crisis with North Korea.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN), who has recently been involved in a personal feud with Trump, reiterated his argument as the president prepares for his first official visit to Asia later this week.

“When our secretary of state is sitting down with a partner that matters most — China — trying to negotiate something that would resolve and keep us from going into military conflict with North Korea, which brings in South Korea, Japan, China, and Russia, and he’s knee-capped by the president, it hurts our nation. It hurts our efforts,” the senator told CBS.

“It leads us more fully towards the conflict that most of us would like to see resolved in another way. The tweets that are sent out mocking a leader of another country raises tensions in the region,” he added, referring to Trump’s references to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as “Little Rocket Man.”  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but I think President Trump is just trying to change the dynamic that has been missing from past diplomatic efforts that the threat of a military strike this time is very real.  Does anyone think the robust UN sanctions and so far China’s efforts to implement them would have happened if there wasn’t a real concern that President Trump was serious about a military strike?

Here is what retired General and former CIA Director David Petraeus had to say about President Trump’s rhetoric towards North Korea:

The United States is unlikely to go to nuclear war with North Korea despite the recent escalation in tensions, a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency said Sunday.

David Petraeus, who served in the Barack Obama administration from 2011-2012, said he thinks U.S. President Donald Trump has been using tough rhetoric with North Korea to get the attention of the leadership in China, not in Pyongyang.

“This is about getting President Xi’s attention … so that China will really clamp down on the umbilical cord through which 90 percent of the trade that goes to and from North Korea transits,” Petraeus said in an interview on ABC News.

China is able to “bring North Korea to its senses,” he added, alluding to Beijing’s leverage as Pyongyang’s main ally and economic benefactor.

North Korea carried out two long-range missile tests in July and a sixth nuclear test in September. Trump declared shortly thereafter that he would “totally destroy” the North if it posed a direct threat to the U.S.

Petraeus said a nuclear war is still unlikely.

“I don’t think likely. No,” he said. “I think, in fact, that again all of this is a communications strategy that is trying to make sure that China understands that this administration is in a very different situation from any of its predecessors, that North Korea on this president’s watch could have the capability to hit a city in the United States with a nuclear weapon.”  [Yonhap]

If the ROK government and the State Department have their way, the answer is no:

It has become the ultimate symbol of American resolve against the threat of North Korea: a visit by the U.S. commander in chief to “freedom’s frontier,” the heavily guarded Demilitarized Zone that has separated the North and South for 64 years.

Wearing bomber-style jackets, surrounded by military officers, peering through binoculars, all but one president since Ronald Reagan has gazed across the barren strip of land at the 38th parallel from an observation post — and been moved to talk tough. In April, Vice President Mike Pence, undertaking the same solemn ritual, said he toured the DMZ so the North Koreans could “see our resolve in my face.”

But as President Donald Trump prepares for a 12-day swing next month through five Asian nations to bolster international pressure on Pyongyang, the administration is divided over whether he should make the pilgrimage, an issue that remains unresolved. Some aides worry a visit could further inflame already heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula, while others have expressed concern over Trump’s personal safety, according to people who have spoken to administration officials.

Asian foreign policy veterans of both the Obama and George W. Bush administrations said it would be foolish for Trump not to go. But the White House is facing opposition from South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s administration and the U.S. State Department over fears that a visit would ratchet up Trump’s war of words with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link, but if people are worried about President Trump saying something provocative about North Korea during his visit does the location really matter?  As far as his personal safety does anyone really think the North Koreans will assassinate President Trump while visiting Panmunjom and start a war that will end the regime?  I guess we will see how this plays out.

If you watch anything today, watch what retired General and White House Chief of Staff said at a press conference yesterday.  No matter what you think of this whole condolence call controversy this is pretty powerful stuff.  Here is an excerpt:

Invoking the death of his son, a Marine, in Afghanistan, White House chief of staff John Kelly delivered an impassioned defense on Thursday of President Trump’s outreach to families of four Americans recently killed in Niger. Kelly also denounced Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Fla., as “selfish” for criticizing Trump for his message to one soldier’s widow.

“I appeal to America: Let’s not let this, maybe, last thing that’s held sacred in our society: a young man, young woman going out and giving his or her life for our country. Let’s try to somehow keep that sacred,” Kelly said in an unusual appearance in the White House briefing room. “It eroded a great deal yesterday by the selfish behavior of a member of Congress.”

Wilson had said that Trump callously told Myeshia Johnson — whose husband Army Sgt. La David Johnson was killed in an Oct. 4 patrol in Niger — that her husband “knew what he signed up for.” The congresswoman, a Johnson family friend, reportedly overheard parts of the conversation while riding in the same car as the widow. Trump flatly denied that account on Twitter Wednesday and said he had “proof.” The soldier’s mother, Cowanda Jones-Johnson, reportedly said that the president had “disrespected” her family.

But Kelly, a retired Marine general, broadly confirmed Wilson’s account — while explaining that Trump had drawn inspiration from what the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joseph Dunford, told him when Robert Kelly was killed after stepping on a landmine while on patrol in Afghanistan in 2010.

“He said ‘Kell, he was doing exactly what he wanted to do when he was killed. He knew what he was getting into, by joining the Marines — that 1 percent — he knew what the possibilities were, because we’re at war,” Kelly said. “‘When he died, he was surrounded by the best men on this Earth, his friends.’

“That’s what the president tried to say to four families the other day,” Kelly said. “I was stunned when I came to work yesterday morning, and brokenhearted, at what I saw a member of Congress doing. A member of Congress who listened in on a phone call from the president of the United States to a young wife, and, in his way, tried to express that opinion — he was a brave man, a fallen hero. He knew what he was getting himself into, because he enlisted — there was no reason to enlist, he enlisted. And he was where he wanted to be, exactly where he wanted to be, exactly the people he wanted to be with, when his life was taken. That was the message.”  [Yahoo News]

You can read more and watch the video at the link.  General Kelly definitely provides the needed context of what the President had tried to say.  The President probably should have took General Kelly’s advice and not made the call considering the difficulty he can sometimes have articulating what he means.  But like General Kelly I was surprised that a member of Congress after something like this happens, the first thing they think of is to find a camera to run in front of to score political points.  Then the media deciding to run with it like they have is just as bad.  Our political and media culture have definitely hit a new low.

It is going to be really interesting to see what President Trump says during his visit to South Korea.  On prior foreign visits since taking the Presidency he has been pretty restrained with what he has said.  However, it will be interesting to see if he makes any “tear down this wall” like statements to North Korea during his visit:

South Korea will provide the best treatment it can offer to a foreign dignitary when U.S. President Donald Trump arrives here Nov. 7 for a two-day state visit, Cheong Wa Dae said Tuesday.

Trump will be the first sitting U.S. head of state to make a “state visit” in 25 years following George H. W. Bush in 1992. He will also be the first head of state to visit Korea since the Moon Jae-in government was launched in May.

“A state visit is made only once for a country during a Korean president’s term,” presidential spokesman Park Soo-hyun said.“Considering this, Trump’s state visit means we are treating him with the best respect as a top guest.”

Foreign leaders’ visits are divided into state, official, working and private visits, with each governed by different protocols.

A state visit usually includes welcome and farewell ceremonies upon arrival and departure, an artillery salute, an official welcome ceremony at Cheong Wa Dae, a state dinner with a performance, a summit and cultural programs. Trump’s visit this time will include almost all such events, according to Park.

Trump and first lady Melania will arrive here in the morning following their visit to Japan. They will leave for Beijing in the afternoon the next day. Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, will also accompany the first couple as a member of the official entourage.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but President Trump will arrive on the morning of November 7th and is scheduled to give a speech to the National Assembly after visiting the Blue House.  There are no plans to visit the DMZ during his visit because of the current tensions with North Korea.