Tag: Donald Trump

Here is the latest from the Trump administration on North Korea’s denuclearization:

U.S. President Donald Trump said Saturday during a campaign rally in Illinois that he doesn’t care how long North Korean denuclearization takes as long as there is no nuclear testing.

The remark was made as denuclearization talks between Washington and Pyongyang remain deadlocked and a month after Trump said it “doesn’t matter” if it takes “two years, three years of five months” for the North to denuclearize.

Trump’s refusal to set a time frame seems to ignore North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s thinking on the issue. South Korean President Moon Jae-in said in September, shortly after his third summit with Kim, that Kim mentioned his regime was willing to give up its nuclear arsenal by the end of Trump’s term in January 2021.

“I don’t care,” Trump said during the Illinois rally. “I tell my people, I couldn’t care how long, as long as there’s no testing, as long as there’s no nuclear testing.”

Trump boasted of his “great relationship” with Kim and how both sides were happy with each other, rebuking critics who say his administration isn’t moving fast enough to get the denuclearization job done.

“North Korea’s going to be a great economic place,” Trump said, again painting a rosy future for the North if it gives up its nuclear weapons. “The location is so good between Russia and China and South Korea.”  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

This was a pretty blunt reaction by President Trump to South Korea’s proposal to drop sanctions on North Korea:

South Korea on Thursday walked back on a proposal to lift some of its unilateral sanctions against North Korea following U.S. President Donald Trump’s blunt retort that Seoul could “do nothing” without Washington’s approval.

Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha had said on Wednesday that Seoul was considering lifting measures applied after a deadly attack in 2010 that killed 46 South Korean sailors. She cited the intent to create more diplomatic momentum for talks over North Korea’s nuclear program.

South Korean conservatives reacted with anger as well, and Kang’s ministry downplayed her comments later, saying in a statement that the government has yet to start a “full-fledged” review of sanctions, meaning no decision was imminent.

Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon told a parliamentary audit on Thursday there has been no serious consideration given to lifting the sanctions and that doing so would be hard unless North Korea acknowledges responsibility for the 2010 attack. North Korea has fiercely denied it sank the Cheonan warship.  (………..)

“They won’t do that without our approval,” Trump said of the comments. “They do nothing without our approval.”  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link, but it appears there may be some friction coming out of the White House over President Moon’s willingness to push for dropping sanctions for little to nothing in return from North Korea.

Trump just said in his W Virginia speech that he “loves” Kim Jong Un, & his audience clapped. Seriously. WTH has happened to the GOP? It’s just unrecognizable. This is why I’m so resistant to T’s diplomacy w/ NK. He’s doing it for all the wrong reasons – flattery, admiration, /1

— Robert E Kelly (@Robert_E_Kelly) September 30, 2018

Just like President Trump is claimed in Woodward’s book to have been exploring the ordering of a preemptive strike on North Korea, what is the big deal if he was likewise exploring the option of removing dependents from South Korea?

Woodward writes that Trump even proposed sending a tweet declaring that he was ordering all U.S. military dependents out of South Korea, an act that would likely be read in North Korea as a signal that the United States was preparing for war.

The tweet never went out.

On Dec. 3, after another North Korean ICBM test, Sen. Lindsay Graham advocated removing U.S. troops’ families from South Korea in an interview. The book says that, the following day, McMaster was informed that Ri Su-yong, a vice chairman of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party Central Committee and director of the committee’s International Affairs Department, told intermediaries “that the North would take the evacuation of U.S. civilians as a sign of imminent attack.”

Hence, withdrawing the dependents of American troops should be “one of the last cards to play,” and the possible tweets were described by Woodward as having “scared the daylights out of the Pentagon leadership,” Defense Secretary James Mattis and Dunford.

Graham, in a change of heart, was said to have advised Trump in a phone call in January that a decision to withdraw U.S. troops’ families is “hard to go back” on, and that it would “rock the South Korean stock market and the Japanese economy.” When asked by Trump if he should delay such an evacuation, Graham, who has been a hard-liner on the North, was quoted as telling him, “I don’t think you should ever start this process unless you’re ready to go to war.”  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

If what is discussed in Woodward’s book is true, Trump like many people not familiar with the situation, may have thought removing dependents would be a good idea to make sure a preemptive strike option could be executed if needed.  Clearly his aides and Senator Graham advised him otherwise of the difficulties and ramifications of removing dependents from South Korea and the President decided otherwise.

If there is going to be a second Trump-Kim summit I would think there is going to be a major announcement from the summit instead of the generalities that came out of the first summit:

South Korea’s president called on the United States and North Korea to make “bold decisions” to put nuclear negotiations back on track as the White House announced planning is underway for a second summit between President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un.

President Moon Jae-in, who plans to travel to Pyongyang next week for his own meeting with Kim, said he has no choice but to play mediator to promote dialogue between the longtime adversaries.

Talks aimed at persuading the North to give up nuclear weapons have stalled since Trump and Kim vowed to work toward the “complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” at their June 12 summit in Singapore.

But Trump welcomed a North Korean military parade over the weekend that left out the usual long-range missiles and focused on peace and economic development in what was seen as a gesture toward rekindling talks with Washington.

Moon said Tuesday that the North must dismantle its nuclear weapons programs and the U.S. must take a corresponding step.

“If we would like to move to a higher level … bold ideas and decisions by the leaders of North Korea and the United States are necessary,” he said during a Cabinet meeting, according to a transcript from his office. “In the process, both countries must end the deep-rooted, mutual distrust stemming from 70 years of hostile relations.”  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link, but when President Moon talks about “bold decisions” what he means is that President Trump needs to sign up for the “pretend denuclearization” plan.  Does anyone really expect Kim Jong-un is going to show up at a second summit and hand over his nukes to President Trump?

It is pretty clear that President Moon and Kim Jong-un are going to be putting a full court press on President Trump to declare an end to the Korean War this year:

South Korean President Moon Jae-in said his goal is to make “irreversible progress by the end of the year” toward denuclearization and a permanent peace on the Korean Peninsula in an interview on Friday.

A tangible step in that direction would be a formal declaration to end the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended with an armistice agreement, not a peace treaty, Moon told Indonesia’s Kompas newspaper in a written interview published two days after his special envoy returned from a trip to Pyongyang and met with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

The interview came ahead of Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s three-day state visit to Seoul kicking off Monday.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but I expect a lot of flattery and pretend denuclearization concessions from the North Koreans to get him to agree to end the Korean War.  Kim is probably hoping that Trump will go along with the pretend denuclearization strategy as way to boost poll numbers prior to the mid-term elections in the US.  We should see over the next couple of months if pretend denuclearization will be what Trump decides to do.

So why are President Moon and Kim Jong-un so intent on end the Korean War?  That is because once the war is officially ended this then challenges the legitimacy of the US-ROK alliance.  If there is no longer hostilities between the two Koreas then why does the US military need to be there?

I believe that President Moon is too smart to advocate against keeping USFK in Korea post-peace treaty because that will mobilize the conservative opposition against him.  However, Moon can use his surrogates to make life difficult for USFK to where the Trump administration could decide to withdraw on its own.  This gets Moon and his left wing base in South Korea what they ultimately want, USFK withdrawal without getting blamed for it.

With the end of the US-ROK alliance Moon and Kim can move forward with their confederation idea which will essentially lead to unification on North Korean terms.

Kim Jong-un and President Trump are continuing their pen pal relationship:

U.S. President Donald Trump said Friday he expects to receive a “positive letter” from North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump said that he knows a personal letter from Kim is going to be delivered to him, adding that it was handed over at the border the day before.

This border Trump refers to is suspected to be the inter-Korean border, but a detailed route of the letter’s delivery was not provided.

Trump said the letter will likely be delivered to him by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and added that “It’s an elegant way, the way it used to be many years ago before we had all of the new contraptions that we all use.”

Trump also said he thinks it’s going to be a positive letter.   [KBS World Radio]

I have to wonder what flattery and empty denuclearization promise will be in the letter that Kim is going to try and use to sway President Trump to make a major concession?  My guess would be the major concession Kim will ask for is a treaty to end the Korean War.

It appears that the North Koreans are still trying to use flattery with President Trump to get sanctions removed instead of denuclearizing:

U.S. President Donald Trump thanked North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and pledged to work together with him on Thursday after Kim said via a South Korean envoy that his faith in Trump remains unchanged.

“Kim Jong Un of North Korea proclaims ‘unwavering faith in President Trump.’ Thank you to Chairman Kim. We will get it done together!” Trump tweeted.

South Korea’s chief presidential security adviser, Chung Eui-yong, made a one-day trip to Pyongyang on Wednesday and held talks with the North’s leader amid a deadlock in denuclearization negotiations between the United States and the North.

During the talks, Kim told Chung’s delegation that he remains firmly committed to denuclearization and that his faith in Trump remains unchanged, even though nuclear negotiations with the U.S. encountered difficulties, according to Chung.

Kim was also quoted as saying he’s never spoken ill of Trump to anybody.  [Yonhap]

Kim Jong-un best be careful, Bob Woodward will probably claim he found an anonymous source that he talked bad about President Trump.

Here are some of the excerpts involving the Korean peninsula from Bob Woodward’s new book about the Trump administration:

A former senior adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump removed a document from the president’s desk to stop him from signing off on withdrawing the United States from a trade deal with South Korea, a news report citing an unpublished book said Tuesday.

Bob Woodward, a Washington Post journalist known for his investigative reporting on the Watergate scandal, wrote the anecdote in his new book, “Fear,” set for release next week, the paper said.

Woodward also wrote, based on in-depth interviews with administration officials whose identities were not revealed, that Trump’s handling of the North Korean nuclear threat caused anxiety among his subordinates.

“According to Woodward, Cohn ‘stole a letter off Trump’s desk’ that the president was intending to sign to formally withdraw the United States from a trade agreement with South Korea,” the Post wrote, referring to Trump’s former top economic adviser, Gary Cohn.

“Cohn later told an associate that he removed the letter to protect national security and that Trump did not notice that it was missing,” it said.

Trump is known to have considered terminating the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement last year before stopping short due to tensions over North Korea’s sixth nuclear test in September.

The two sides later renegotiated the deal but have yet to formally sign it.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

I find it hard to believe that something as significant as withdrawing from the US-ROK FTA would be something that President Trump would just forget about, he probably never intended to sign it in the first place.  This just seems like typical Trump approach of making a threatening demand to show his seriousness to later settle for a better deal.

At a National Security Council meeting in January, Trump downplayed the importance of the U.S. troop presence in South Korea and questioned why government resources were being spent in the region, the paper quoted the book as saying.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis responded, “We’re doing this in order to prevent World War III,” it said. “After Trump left the meeting, Woodward recounts, ‘Mattis was particularly exasperated and alarmed, telling close associates that the president acted like – and had the understanding of – ‘a fifth- or sixth-grader.’”

I find it believable that Secretary Mattis made the “prevent World War III” comment, but I find it hard to believe that Secretary Mattis would openly mock the President in front of his aides.

One month into the Trump administration, U.S. Joint Chief of Staff Chairman Joe Dunford was “rattled” when Trump asked him to prepare a plan for a pre-emptive military strike on North Korea.

I doubt someone of General Dunford’s stature and experience gets “rattled” by much of anything.  I would hope the Pentagon has a pre-emptive strike plan for North Korea on the shelf.  If the President wants to review it that seems prudent.

And last fall, Trump mocked North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at a United Nations speech by calling him “Little Rocket Man.” Aides worried that he may be provoking Kim, but the president told his then aide Rob Porter that it was a “contest of wills,” according to The Post’s account of the book.

“This is all about leader versus leader. Man versus man. Me versus Kim,” Trump was quoted as saying.

This last excerpt I can actually see the President saying.

President Trump is now saying he still supports a suspension of joint military drills and blames China for the recent gridlock on denuclearization:

The White House said Wednesday the U.S. decision to suspend major combined military exercises with South Korea holds true despite a stalemate in efforts to denuclearize North Korea.

President Donald Trump believes “there is no reason at this time to be spending large amounts of money on joint U.S.-South Korea war games,” his office said in a statement posted on his Twitter account.

It cited Trump’s “good and warm” relationship with the North’s leader Kim Jong-un stemming from their historic Singapore summit on June 12.

Trump thinks China is to blame, at least partially, for the recent gridlock highlighted by the cancellation of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s trip to Pyongyang this week.

He “feels strongly that North Korea is under tremendous pressure from China because of our major trade disputes with the Chinese Government,” the statement read.

Furthermore, it added, China is providing North Korea with “considerable aid, including money, fuel, fertilizer and various other commodities. This is not helpful!”  [Yonhap]

You can read much more at the link, but I am sure the Chinese are not being helpful on the nuclear issue, however I have never believed the Kim regime has wanted to denuclearize anyway.  Their strategy has long been getting concessions for pretend denuclearization.