That is what some in Washington D.C. are thinking:
Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong Un meet in Panmunjon on May 26.
When Donald Trump abruptly scrapped their planned summit, Kim Jong Un sought out someone he knew would come over for a chat: South Korean leader Moon Jae-in. (………….)
For now, Moon has maintained an appearance as a neutral middleman who can bridge the gap between Trump and Kim, two reactive leaders who create a high risk of miscalculation. Yet over the longer term, Moon’s desire to cut a peace deal with North Korea during his single five-year term means Trump could find it harder to enforce his “maximum pressure” campaign if talks break down again.
“There is a fine line between being an honest broker and being the North’s accomplice,” said Ralph Cossa, president of Pacific Forum in Honolulu. “There are some in Washington who are seeing Moon as the latter and this builds upon the distrust that any progressive leader carries with him.” [Bloomberg]
You can read more at the link, but if things turn out once again that North Korea gets aid and sanctions relief for little to nothing in return; the media and left will not think of Moon as an accomplice. Instead they will award Moon the Nobel Peace Prize just like they did with former President Kim Dae-jung.
Kim Dae-jung gave the North Koreans a $500 million bribe to hold the summit and yet many in the media and the left defend his legacy to this day. Arguably the bribe followed by nearly a decade of unconditional aid has sustained the Kim regime after the break up of the Soviet Union and allowed them to build their current nuclear arsenal.
However, maybe Moon will surprise us and he will convince Kim Jong-un to give up his nuclear weapons with his current bromance effort. If that is the case President Moon would definitely be worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize and any other accolade people want to give him. I am however not getting my hopes up.
A mural depicting North Korean leader Kim Jong-un looms over a passerby near the Koreatown neighborhood in Los Angeles, Thursday. Earlier in the day, U.S. President Donald Trump canceled a planned summit with Kim Jong-un. [Korea Times]
According President Moon, Kim Jong-un is committed to denuclearizing:
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has reaffirmed his willingness to denuclearize and hold a summit with U.S. President Donald Trump, South Korean President Moon Jae-in said Sunday.
“Chairman Kim Jong-un has once again clearly expressed his commitment to the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula following his pledge in the Panmunjom Declaration and expressed his willingness to end the history of war and confrontation through the success of the North Korea-U.S. summit,” Moon said of his latest summit with the North Korean leader held Saturday.
“We two leaders agreed the June 12 North Korea-U.S. summit must be successfully held,” he told a nationally televised press conference.
The latest inter-Korean summit was held on the North Korean side of Panmunjom, a border village that sits directly on the Military Demarcation Line that divides the two Koreas. The first Moon-Kim summit was held on the South Korean side of Panmunjom on April 27.
Trump on Thursday (Washington time) called off his scheduled summit with Kim, citing the North’s tremendous anger and open hostility, only to suggest later the meeting would go ahead as planned.
“While explaining the outcome of my summit with U.S. President Trump held last week, I relayed the message that President Trump is firmly willing to end his country’s hostile relationship with North Korea and enhance economic cooperation should Chairman Kim make a decision on complete denuclearization and implements it,” Moon said.
The South Korean president visited Washington on Monday-Wednesday. He said his surprise meeting with Kim came at a suggestion from the North Korean leader, who on Friday expressed hope to meet for candid dialogue.
“Also, as both Chairman Kim and President Trump sincerely wish for the success of the North-U.S. summit, I stressed the need for the two sides to remove any misunderstanding through direct communication and to hold enough dialogue on agenda issues that need to be addressed at their summit,” President Moon said, adding, “Chairman Kim also agreed.” (……..)
“Chairman Kim Jong-un once again clearly affirmed that his commitment to complete denuclearization remains firm yesterday. What remains uncertain to Chairman Kim Jong-un is whether he can trust the U.S. promise to end their hostile relationship and guarantee North Korea’s security once the North denuclearizes,” the president added. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but if Kim Jong-un wants to ensure a deal stays in place then he needs to have President Trump ratify a treaty with the Senate. If a deal is struck that is not ratified by the Senate then the next President can come in and not follow it. That is what President Trump did with the Iran deal. It would be interesting though in an election year for Congress how they would approach the ratification of a treaty with North Korea.
I think this is a sign of just how off balance President Trump has the Kim regime right now, that Kim Jong-un had to have an emergency summit with Moon Jae-in just to figure out how to move forward:
President Moon Jae-in has held a second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in met for the second time in a month on Saturday, holding a surprise summit at a border truce village to discuss Kim’s potential meeting with President Donald Trump, Moon’s office said.
Kim and Moon met hours after South Korea expressed relief over revived talks for a summit between Trump and Kim following a whirlwind 24 hours that saw Trump cancel the highly anticipated meeting before saying it’s potentially back on.
Moon, who brokered the summit between Washington and Pyongyang, likely used Saturday’s meeting to confirm Kim’s willingness to enter nuclear negotiations with Trump and clarify what steps Kim has in mind in the process of denuclearization, said Hong Min, a senior analyst at Seoul’s Korea Institute for National Unification. [Associated Press]
I can only imagine what they talked about, but I would not be surprised if the conversation included the fact that the usual playbook is not working on President Trump. The past strategy of the North Koreans giving little to nothing in return for massive aid and lifting of sanctions is clearly not going to happen this time. The Trump administration has made it pretty clear that real denuclearization is what will happen if a deal is to be done.
By the way does anyone want to provide their own caption of the below picture?:
In this photo provided by the South Korean presidential office Cheong Wa Dae, South Korean President Moon Jae-in (R) and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un hold each other before parting after their second summit held at the border village of Panmunjom on May 26, 2018. (Yonhap)
President Trump has completely flipped the script on the Kim regime. The North Koreans are used to being the ones canceling talks and making the other parties make concessions to get them to come back:
President Donald Trump called off his summit with Kim Jong-un on Thursday after North Korea hurled insults at Vice President Mike Pence.
Trump said it would be ‘inappropriate’ to hold talks at this time after the Kim regime again tested the limits of his patience.
‘You talk about your nuclear capabilities, but ours are so massive and powerful that I pray to God they will never be used,’ he said in a letter to Kim that the White House distributed.
North Korea‘s vice foreign minister had slammed Pence for his ‘unbridled and impudent remarks that North Korea might end like Libya.’
Choe Son Hui also said the future of the summit between Pyongyang and Washington is ‘entirely’ up to the United States, as she condemned an interview Pence gave to Fox News.
Trump said in his letter to Kim that as a result of the ‘tremendous anger and open hostility’ demonstrated by North Korea in the latest back and forth, he was pulling out of the June 12 meeting to discuss Pyongyang’s nuclear program.
‘I feel it is inappropriate, at this time, to have this long-planned meeting,’ Trump said hours after North Korea publicly destroyed much of its Punggye-ri nuclear test site. ‘Therefore, please let this letter serve to represent that the Singapore summit, for the good of both parties, but to the detriment of the world, will not take place.’
The U.S. president went on to say that he hopes to meet Kim one day and that the good dialogue that was building up between the two nations prior to the recent provocations remains promising.
Trump’s letter to Kim followed a string of threats from the North to call off the summit that had been brokered to discuss a commitment to denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
The president told DailyMail.com on Wednesday that he’d know whether he was moving forward with the Singapore summit ‘next week.’ That was before North Korea’s latest volley, which included the assault on Pence.
‘We will neither beg the U.S. for dialogue nor take the trouble to persuade them if they do not want to sit together with us,’ said Choe Son Hui, according to a report by North Korea’s central news agency on Thursday.
She added: ‘I cannot suppress my surprise at such ignorant and stupid remarks gushing out from the mouth of the US vice-president. [Daily Mail]
You can read more at the link, but here is the letter that President Trump sent to Kim Jong-un:
I look at this as not being a cancellation of the talks, but instead part of the ongoing negotiations. The Trump administration has put North Korea in its place by reminding them who they are and who they are dealing with; thus the description in the difference in nuclear capabilities in the letter. I also think the message being sent is that the United States will not be pushed around by the North Koreans and they should be respectful towards the Trump administration and thankful for the opportunity to meet with the US President. This is especially true considering President Trump has made very respectful remarks towards Kim Jong-un and even the cancellation letter is extremely polite towards Kim Jong-un.
We are about to see how serious the Kim regime is about holding these talks and reaching a denuclearization deal because the ball is now officially in their court. President Trump’s letter leaves it very open for a future meeting if the Kim regime changes its tone. If they apologize for the remarks towards Vice President Pence that is a signal that they really do want a deal. However, if they begin another launch cycle or execute a provocation of some kind then that is a sign they were never serious about these talks in the first place.
However, it was good to see that for once the United States got something out of North Korea, the release of the three American detainees for little to nothing in return. It is usually the other way around where the US and South Korea makes concessions to North Korea for little to nothing in return. Once again President Trump has flipped the script on the Kim regime. It will be interesting to see how the North Koreans respond.
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.
North Korea’s top leader Kim Jong-un looks at a photo of his grandfather and the North’s founder, Kim Il-sung, hung at a state guest house on Bangchuidao Island of China’s northern city of Dalian in this photo captured from the North’s Korean Central TV on May 9, 2018. Kim met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Dalian during his visit there from May 7-8, the second such meeting in just over 40 days. Bangchuidao Island is a seaside resort that was often used in the past for secret North Korea-China leaders’ meetings. (Yonhap)
