U.S. State Department Reportedly Pursuing a “Small Deal” Strategy with North Korea
If the Trump administration goes with the “small deal” approach with North Korea, they are essentially doing what has already been tried before and did not work:
An editorial published by the Washington Post has put forward the argument that a step-by-step “small deal” is the only diplomatic way forward with North Korea.
Columnist Josh Rogin said in an op-ed Thursday that the United States and North Korea are resuming negotiations in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump’s impromptu meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un last weekend, and that a fight over North Korea policy has rekindled within the Trump administration.
He said, “What we’re seeing now is a return to the idea of a step-by-step approach known as the ‘small deal,’” which he called the only diplomatic path with any chance of success.
He asserted that the Trump administration, led on this issue by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and special representative Stephen Biegun, is now returning to an incremental and phased approach to persuading North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons.
KBS World Radio
You can read more at the link, but a small deal would politically get the Trump administration through the 2020 election cycle which is what I think the North Koreans are counting on. The longer they wait and the harder they negotiate up to the 2020 election cycle the better deal they will likely get. Their goal is to get sanctions relief and keep their nukes and the small deal allows them to do this.
If a small deal is signed it will likely be marketed as a “Big Deal” if it includes a path to full denuclearization of North Korea. This politically allows the Trump administration to claim they have achieved a deal to completely denuclearize North Korea as a foreign policy achievement during the 2020 election. However, as we have seen in the past it is likely that the Kim regime will tear up the agreement at a time of their choosing and blame the U.S. for the deal’s failure. By the time this happens their treasury will be flush with cash due to the easing of sanctions and maybe even get major political concessions such as a Korean War peace treaty and USFK troop reductions.
I guess we will see where this is headed to in the next few months.
Well, we believe Trump stays Trump.
And we already know the Compost, like theat other fishwrap from New York, make up stuff to try to damage the President.
Don’t lose hope.
I would like to think that Trump’s charm offensive tactics when trying to build relations with adversaries, and his unpredictability when those tactics prove fruitless would lead Kim to choose the former rather than the latter.
Of course, there are those who say that many of the erratic decisions and provocation cycles of the North were on the orders of China. In that case it will take a lot of planning and high level strategy to break Kim away from China’s sway and influence. Perhaps Kim is already on board but still has to worry about how deep Chinese control of his military leadership goes.
Maybe the groundwork has already been laid and we are witnessing the early phases of a plan being executed.
With all the odds against it and so many people wanting it to fail, I have a difficult time seeing how North Korea is brought into the global economy and its people are given more freedoms without chaos on the peninsula.