I am sure President Trump understands this, but if a deal is not made the North Koreans will very likely launch provocations next year to pressure the Trump administration into a deal:
This Associated Press file photo from June 30, 2019, shows U.S. President Donald Trump (L) standing with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at the North Korean side of the border village of Panmunjom. (Yonhap)
U.S. President Donald Trump said Saturday he doesn’t think North Korea will engage in hostile acts and interfere with the upcoming U.S. presidential election, an apparent warning that the communist nation shouldn’t undertake provocations that could hurt his reelection chances.
“I’d be surprised if North Korea acted hostilely,” Trump was quoted as telling reporters at the White House. “He knows I have an election coming up. I don’t think he wants to interfere with that. But we’ll have to see.”
This is just another example of North Korea trying to create more tension prior to the end of the year in hopes of getting a deal with the Trump administration:
The lack of courtesy shown to Kim had “prompted the waves of hatred of our people against the U.S. and the Americans and they are getting higher and higher”, Choe said.
“It would be fortunate” if Trump’s remarks were simply “an instantaneous verbal lapse, but the matter becomes different if they were a planned provocation that deliberately targeted us”, she said.
North Korea would watch closely to see if Trump repeated the comments, Choe said.
“If any language and expressions stoking the atmosphere of confrontation are used once again on purpose at a crucial moment as now, that must really be diagnosed as the relapse of the dotage of a dotard,” she concluded.
Trump said on Tuesday he still had confidence in the North Korean leader but noted that Kim “likes sending rockets up”.
“…That’s why I call him Rocket Man,” Trump told reporters at a NATO meeting in London.
Like I said before, President Trump does not respond well to threats:
U.S. President Donald Trump’s remarks about the possibility of using force against North Korea appears intended to warn against possible provocations ahead of the year-end deadline the regime set for Washington to show flexibility in their deadlocked nuclear talks, analysts said Wednesday.
Trump made the threat of military action on Tuesday, just hours after the North reiterated that the deadline is approaching and warned that it is entirely up to Washington what “Christmas gift” it wants to get.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has set the deadline for Washington to come up with an acceptable proposal to move forward the nuclear negotiations, warning that Pyongyang could otherwise take a “new way.”
“Now we have the most powerful military we’ve ever had and we’re by far the most powerful country in the world,” Trump told reporters during his trip to London to attend a meeting of North Atlantic Treaty Organization leaders.
“And, hopefully, we don’t have to use it, but if we do, we’ll use it. If we have to, we’ll do it,” he added.
There is a new book out and of course to create traction in the media with it the author has to claim that President Trump is an idiot:
During that conversation, Wead wrote, Trump reiterated his belief that Obama would have gone to war with the North had he stayed in office.
“And I also think that thirty to one hundred million people could have been killed,” Wead quoted the president as saying.
South Korea has 51.2 million people and North Korea has a population of 25 million.
Trump then expressed disbelief at experts’ predictions that 100,000-200,000 people would die, a number he said was the equivalent of the population of a South Korean village.
“Well, as you know, Seoul, the capital city, is right by the so-called border,” he continued, according to Wead. “And that is a tough border by the way. An impenetrable border. And Seoul has a population of thirty million people. Kim has ten thousand guns, artillery, they call them cannons. He doesn’t even need a nuclear weapon to create one of the greatest calamities in history.”
When I read Trump’s comments I clearly understood that when he was talking about Seoul he was referencing the Seoul metropolitan area. The Seoul city center has 10 million, but the metro area has 25 million. Also when he is talking about upwards of 100 million casualties how do we know he wasn’t including if a nuclear weapon was dropped on Tokyo or other major cities? It is context like this that is important, but to get media attention he must be described as an idiot, so mission accomplished by this author.
The only real idiots are whoever told him a war on the Korean peninsula would only lead to 100,000 to 200,000 deaths. If they did not use nukes I could maybe understand that number, but I find it hard to believe that if North Korea went all in and used nuclear weapons, that only that many people would die.
A quote I did find interesting that may explain why President Trump is pushing so hard on the Moon administration on USFK cost sharing is the status of the THAAD battery in South Korea:
“Do you know how much we spend defending South Korea? Four and half billion dollars a year. Figure that one out?” he added.
Trump has reportedly demanded that South Korea raise its contribution to shared defense costs to US$5 billion next year, a five-fold increase from this year.
Trump also complained to Wead that the people who treated the U.S. the worst were its allies.
“And you’ve heard the story with South Korea with the missiles system, with the THAAD anti-missile system?” he was quoted as saying.
I read that to mean that he is not happy about how the Moon administration is allowing the blockade of the road to the THAAD battery to occur. ROK Heads may remember that the road is still blocked and all supplies and personnel to the battery have to be flown in by helicopter. The battery though there to protect South Koreans is frequently used by Moon’s leftist allies to promote wild conspiracy theories and anti-Americanism.
Trump we have seen has a long memory when it comes to things he does not like and maybe the THAAD issue is something he is still unhappy about and influencing the cost sharing talks?
We all know that President Trump wants South Korea to pay more for the US-ROK alliance upkeep. This is nothing new, however this guy needs to sell a book which of course means coming up with a quote that make Trump look crazy. When are people going to learn not to take President Trump’s outbursts literally as he wanting $60 billion a year from South Korea. From the quote, I read it as he wants South Korea to pay much more for US-ROK alliance upkeep fees and just threw out a big number to make his point:
This AP photo shows U.S. President Donald Trump (C) speaking at the White House on March 23, 2018, with then-U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis (L) and U.S. Vice President Mike Pence listening. (Yonhap)
U.S. President Donald Trump called South Korea a “major abuser” and claimed the U.S. ally should pay US$60 billion a year for the stationing of American troops in the country, according to a memoir published Tuesday.
Guy Snodgrass, former chief speechwriter and communications director to former U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis, made the revelation in his new book, “Holding the Line: Inside Trump’s Pentagon with Secretary Mattis,” as he recounted two meetings between Trump and his national security team at the Pentagon in July 2017 and January 2018.
According to Snodgrass, Trump repeatedly questioned the value of stationing U.S. troops overseas and asked top officials, including then-Defense Secretary Mattis and then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, whether the troops could be withdrawn from countries such as South Korea, Japan and Germany.
“It’s a losing deal!” Trump was quoted as saying in January 2018. “If (South Korea) paid us $60 billion a year to keep our troops overseas, then it’s an okay deal.”
Here is the latest reading of the tea leaves in regards to North Korea denuclearization talks:
U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday said there would be a “major rebuild” of North Korea at some point, and he referred to some “very interesting information” he recently obtained in regard to the country.
It was unclear whether the remark, delivered near the end of a cabinet meeting, alluded to some progress in Washington’s stalled denuclearization negotiations with Pyongyang or whether it could be another of Trump’s idiosyncratic ideas of striking an ultimate deal with the regime.
You can read more at the link, but apparently an offer the Trump administration made at the last talks was to help North Korea complete their massive tourism project between Wonsan and Kalma on the country’s east coast. The project has been delayed by the sanctions. If anyone knows how to complete a resort project it would be Trump. I guess we will see what happens in the coming months on this offer.
It appears that the ROK strategy for not paying more for USFK cost sharing is to imply that they may reduce their purchase of U.S. weapons if they pay more:
President Moon Jae-in outlined to U.S. President Donald Trump Korea’s plans to purchase many American weapons over the next three years as they held a summit in New York on Monday.
A Blue House official told reporters that Moon during the talks briefed Trump on Seoul’s weapons purchases over the past decade and “also plans for our purchases for the next three years.”
Moon is expected to have explained to Trump Seoul’s purchase of American weapons systems between 2009 and 2018. This is likely to have included the acquisition of 40 F-35A Lockheed Martin stealth fighters and three American-made Aegis combat systems, worth some $6.279 billion, according to data by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri).
During the 10-year time frame, Korea ranked as the fourth-largest U.S. weapons importer, following Saudi Arabia, Australia and the United Arab Emirates, according to Sipri data.
I don’t think anyone doubts North Korea’s economic potential, the real question is if their economic potential can be reached and the Kim regime still remains in power:
U.S. President Donald Trump again touted North Korea’s “tremendous” economic potential on Monday, seemingly urging the regime to return to denuclearization talks.
The negotiations have yet to resume despite Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s agreement to do so within several weeks after their impromptu meeting on the inter-Korean border on June 30.
“I think that North Korea has tremendous economic potential, and I think that Kim Jong-un sees that,” Trump said at a joint press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron at the conclusion of a Group of Seven summit in Biarritz, France.
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.
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
Democratic lawmakers in the United States, including some running for the White House, say there’s little in President Donald Trump’s diplomatic track to convince them that his meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un (gihm jung oon) may lead to a nuclear breakthrough.
Trump is coming under criticism for what Democrats see as his affinity for authoritarian leaders such as Kim and they are skeptical that the Trump-Kim sit-down at the Demilitarized Zone may amount to anything more than a photo opportunity.
Sen. Chuck Schumer says “dictators seem to get elevated and people who believe in democracy not.”
Former Obama Housing Secretary Julian Castro, a presidential candidate, wonders why Trump appears keen to raise Kim’s profile when, according to Castro, Kim hasn’t abided by past commitments about the North’s weapons programs.
And Sen. Bernie Sanders, also a 2020 candidate, says he’s not opposed to sitting down with America’s adversaries, but he tells ABC’s “This Week” that “we need real diplomacy” and he hasn’t seen that under Trump
This is coming from the people who supported President Obama when he flew to Cuba with his whole family to hang out with the dictators there. I doubt President Trump’s engagement with North Korea is going to get them to denuclearize, but the claims from his critics sound more like “since Trump is for it, I must be against it” instead of any reasoned policy position.
