Tag: United States

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.

Here is who is reportedly replacing General Brooks as the next USFK commander:

The Donald Trump administration is expected to name Robert B. Abrams, a four-star Army general, as the new U.S. Forces Korea commander, according to a diplomatic source Wednesday.

Abrams will replace Gen. Vincent Brooks, who will leave his post as commander of United States Forces Korea (USFK) possibly as early as this summer. An official announcement naming Abrams, currently commander of the U.S. Army Forces Command, as the new head of the USFK is expected to come at a later date, and the replacement is expected to take place in July or August.

The White House is also expected to soon officially name four-star Adm. Harry Harris, the outgoing chief of the U.S. Pacific Command, as ambassador to Seoul, a long-vacant position. A diplomatic source well informed on the matter told the JoongAng Ilbo, “The duo of Harris, a four-star Navy admiral, and Abrams, a four-star Army general, stand at the front line in the case of any problems arising amid the rapidly changing situation on the Korean Peninsula.”

Their appointments would complete the Trump administration’s reshuffling of the diplomatic and security lineup over the Korean Peninsula. Abrams, 57, is the son of a 1950-53 Korean War veteran, Gen. Creighton W. Abrams Jr., a former Army chief of staff and commander in Vietnam who is known for legendary exploits in World War II. His two brothers are also in the military.

Abrams was born in 1960 in Germany and has spent more than 30 years in active service. A graduate of the United States Military Academy, Abrams received a master of science degree from Central Michigan University and a master of strategic studies degree from the United States Army War College. He has led units in countries including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Abrams also previously served as a senior military assistant to the secretary of defense and a strategic war planner for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He became the 22nd chief of United States Army Forces Command in 2015, commanding some 229,000 active duty soldiers. The Army Forces Command includes some 776,000 soldiers and 96,000 civilians.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

The pre-summit gamesmanship has already started by the North Koreans cancelling high level talks with the South Koreans yesterday and threatening to cancel the Trump-Kim summit in Singapore:

Political analysts presume North Korea’s abrupt cancellation of high-level inter-Korean talks and threats to reconsider the Washington-Pyongyang summit are aimed at taking the lead ahead of talks over its denuclearization.

Most predict the North is unlikely to spoil the current mood for dialogue but is trying to strengthen its bargaining power before negotiations and send a warning ― to the U.S., rather than to South Korea ― not to underestimate the country.

About 12:30 a.m. Wednesday, Pyongyang notified Seoul that it had cancelled the high-level talks, which were to take place in less than 10 hours, citing the ongoing South Korea-U.S. joint military drills, which it sees as a rehearsal of war.

Later in the day, North Korea’s Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan also said in a statement the country would reconsider the summit between its leader Kim Jong-un and U.S. President Donald Trump, slated for June 12, if the U.S. forces the North to unilaterally give up nuclear weapons.

Experts say the exercises may not be the true reason for the North canceling talks, considering that the drills started May 11 and the North suggested the meeting four days later. Kim Jong-un also earlier told South Korean envoys that he understood the allies’ joint military drills.

“With the drills as a pretext, Pyongyang is indirectly expressing discontent at the recent hard-line stances from Washington, such as moving the North’s nuclear weapons to the U.S., removing biochemical weapons and raising an issue of human rights abuse,” said Shin Beom-chul, senior fellow at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies. “The North is making use of the high-level talks as a chance (to express its discomfort).”

Indeed, Kim Kye-gwan said American officials’ remarks, such as “denuclearization first and reward later” and “complete abandonment of nuclear, missile and biochemical weapons,” are “thoughtless words that provoke its counterpart.”  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but what I suspect is happening is that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Kim Jong-un what the US expects of the regime from the summit during his recent trip to North Korea, but in the US media other things are being said that were not discussed previously.  People bringing up that human rights should be included in the summit is an especially sensitive topic in North Korea.  Threatening to cancel the summit sends a message to the Trump administration that these topics will not be discussed at the summit.

Unless something drastic happens I would be highly surprised if this summit does not happen because the Kim regime has too much to lose.  South Korea’s Moon administration at least needs the Kim regime to pretend to denuclearize to justify the massive aid package they have planned to give to Kim Jong-un.  They can’t attempt a denuclearization facade if they don’t even show up to the summit.

As I have been saying for some time, if a peace treaty is agreed to with North Korea, the South Korean left will then challenge the relevancy of the US-ROK alliance:

Two progressive civic groups on Sunday called for a review of the character of U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) in line with the two Koreas’ efforts for reconciliation and peace on the Korean Peninsula.

The ,  and Minbyun-Lawyers for a Democratic Society issued the call, with Seoul and Washington set to hold a third round of negotiations this week on sharing the cost for the upkeep of 28,500 American troops in the South.

“As (the two Koreas) are in the process of implementing the Panmunjom Declaration and establishing a peace regime, the character and size of the USFK, and the scope of its activities should be reviewed,” the two groups said in a joint statement.  [Yonhap]

The PSPD and Minbyun are both extreme left wing pro-Pyongyang organization that have long been anti-US.  For example PSPD is one of the groups behind the ongoing THAAD protests, blamed the US for Christian missionaries kidnapped by the Taliban, was a member of the Korean Alliance Against the Korea-U.S. FTA that even had one of their own set himself on fire outside one of the FTA meetings in Seoul.  PSPD was also one of the lead organizations against the relocation of US forces to Camp Humphreys.

Minbyun on the other hand are basically Kim Jong-un’s personal lawyers in South Korea.  They have long been used to legally attack North Korean defectors, one of the groups behind the US beef riots, and have long attacked the USFK relocation plan.

ROK President Moon Jae-in has said that after a peace treaty he wants US forces to stay.

Moon, however, has said that the USFK is a matter of the Seoul-Washington alliance and that it has “nothing to do with” a peace treaty that the two Koreas agreed to pursue to formally end the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended only with a truce.

Remember though that Moon is a very skilled politician that needs to keep the Korean right at bay and public anxiety down.  If he advocated openly for a USFK withdrawal that would give the South Korean right an issue to strongly attack him with and cause much public anxiety after decades of security guarantees provided by US forces.  That is why I think it is a possibility that the Moon administration may publicly say they support USFK, but will then have their surrogates do things to make life difficult for USFK such as what Minbyun is proposing:

Regarding the allies’ talks on the cost of American troops here, the civic groups called for more transparency in spending procedures, more parliamentary oversight and a ban on the use of money for supporting the deployment of U.S. strategic assets.

Possibly the future of USFK could look a lot like the current THAAD site in Seongju.  President Moon will say all the right things that he supports USFK, just like he supposedly supports the THAAD site, but will set conditions to make it difficult for its continued existence.  Minbyun and PSPD’s current efforts could just be the start of a larger strategy to make life more difficult for USFK if a peace treaty is signed.  All the while expect the Moon administration to say how much they support USFK.

The closure of the nuclear test site is nothing, but a show that can be easily reversed; shipping nuclear materials out of the country is a real sign of denuclearization because this is cannot be reversed:

The United States has demanded that North Korea ship some of its nuclear weapons, fissile material and long-range missiles out of the country within months after next month’s summit between the two countries, sources said Sunday.

The U.S. made the demand during talks with the North to fine-tune the agenda of the summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un set for June 12 summit in Singapore, saying sanctions won’t be relaxed unless the demand is met, the sources said.

The North’s response to the demand is not known, they said.

The demand suggests that the U.S. believes the North’s pledge to suspend nuclear and missile testing is not enough and the communist nation should do more to demonstrate its commitment to abandon its nuclear and missile programs.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but if the Kim regime agrees to begin shipping nuclear weapons and material out of their country than we know they are in fact serious about denuclearization.

Here is what Anthony Ruggiero, a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies says that President Trump must be prepared to do at his upcoming summit with Kim Jong-un:

The Panmunjom Declaration, issued after the late April meeting between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae In, feels like a Hollywood movie remake with new actors but the same tired story. North Korea has pledged on multiple occasions to not to acquire nuclear weapons, beginning with the North’s accession to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1985. In 1992, Kim’s grandfather committed to three no’s: no nuclear weapons, no nuclear reprocessing and no uranium enrichment. North Korea was caught red-handed cheating multiple times on all three nuclear no’s, but still received security assurances from the United States in 2005, when both sides pledged “to respect each other’s sovereignty, exist peacefully together” and normalize relations. All of these efforts ended in the same place, with a different Kim breaking his promises and enjoying tangible concessions from the United States and its allies.

To counter Kim’s smile diplomacy and avoid his trap, the Trump administration should take four lessons from prior negotiations with North Korea, Libya and Iran.  [Politico]

You can read the rest at the link, but Ruggiero’s four lessons are:

1. Be prepared to walkaway from the table.
2. Nuclear only deal do not solve the strategic issues.
3. Insist on the Libya model of denuclearization.
4. Don’t release the pressure.

As expected the long awaited summit between President Trump and Kim Jong-un will be held in Singapore:

U.S. President Donald Trump said Thursday that his meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will take place in Singapore June 12.

“The highly anticipated meeting between Kim Jong Un and myself will take place in Singapore on June 12th,” Trump tweeted. “We will both try to make it a very special moment for World Peace!”

Trump’s tweet came just hours after three American citizens were brought home from imprisonment in the communist country.

Their release cleared a major obstacle for the upcoming meeting, which will be the first between sitting leaders of the two countries.

Trump and Kim are expected to discuss the dismantlement of the regime’s nuclear weapons program.

Trump’s aim is the complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of North Korea. Kim has repeatedly expressed his commitment to denuclearization, but it’s unclear on what terms.  [Yonhap]

I wonder how many Americans had to look on a map after hearing this news to figure out where Singapore is?

President Trump is as expected getting bashed for pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal with claims that it will impact his ability to negotiate with Kim Jong-un:

President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal is a major setback to US negotiating credibility and will complicate efforts to reach an agreement with Pyongyang over its own more advanced weapons programme, analysts say.

Trump is set to hold a much-anticipated and unprecedented summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in the coming weeks to negotiate over Pyongyang’s arsenal, after it last year carried out by far its most powerful nuclear test to date and launched missiles capable of reaching the U.S. mainland.

But the US president Tuesday pulled Washington out of the 2015 accord with Teheran, pouring scorn on the “disastrous” agreement and describing it an “embarrassment” to the United States ― although European signatories and the IAEA say Iran has complied with its obligations.

Antony Blinken, who was deputy secretary of state under Barack Obama, said the White House move “makes getting to yes with North Korea that much more challenging”.

“Why would Kim … believe any commitments President Trump makes when he arbitrarily tears up an agreement with which the other party is complying?” he asked on Twitter.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but it can be argued that if the Obama administration thought the Iran nuclear deal was so great why did they not try and lobby the Senate to consent to the treaty as the Constitution requires?  Consent from the Senate would have made it much harder for the President to withdraw from the treaty.  This is what I will be looking for if President Trump is able to strike a deal with the North Koreans; will he try to get consent from the Senate?

As far as impacts to negotiating with Kim Jong-un, I think it is arguable that Trump is sending a message that North Korea will need to agree to denuclearize or there will not be a deal.

This is why North Korea likes to detain Americans, they make great bargaining chips when negotiations like the ones going on now happen:

The U.S. government is looking into reports that three Americans detained in North Korea have been relocated from a labor camp to a hotel near Pyongyang ahead of a planned summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, a U.S. official said on Wednesday.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there was no immediate confirmation of any change in the detainees’ status. Trump administration officials have pressed for their release as a show of goodwill by North Korea before the unprecedented U.S.-North Korea summit expected in late May or early June.

“As everybody is aware, the past Administration has long been asking for three hostages to be released from a North Korean Labor camp, but to no avail. Stay tuned!” Trump said in a Twitter post late on Wednesday.

CNN, in a report on Thursday, cited an unnamed source saying the release of the three men was imminent, adding that the groundwork for the move came two months ago when North Korea’s foreign minister traveled to Sweden and proposed the idea.

South Korean media reports on Wednesday quoted a South Korean activist as saying North Korea had relocated the three Americans from a labor camp to a hotel on the outskirts of Pyongyang. Choi Soung-yong, the activist, told Reuters that Kim Hak-song, Tony Kim and Kim Dong-chul were moved in early April following instructions from superior authorities, citing residents in Pyongyang.  [Reuters]

You can read more at the link, but despite a clear risk of being a long term detainee for committing the smallest of offenses, we will probably continue to see Americans in future go over to North Korea and get detained.

There is a good read posted over at Foreign Policy by Michael Green from the Center of Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) that explains very well the concerns I have been sharing about this supposed peace initiative being executed by North Korea:

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.