Does anyone think it is just a coincidence that the North Korean human rights office in South Korea is shut down shortly after the summit between Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in?:

South Korea’s unification ministry said Thursday that it has closed the office for a state-run foundation for North Korea’s human rights, whose launch has been delayed for nearly two years amid political differences.

The ministry, which handles inter-Korean relations, said that it will terminate the lease contract for the office in Seoul this month to prevent the further waste of government funds, estimated at around 63 million won ($58,120) every month. The office has been vacant since first being rented 21 months ago.

“The move is only an administrative and operational measure to stem further financial losses. The government’s stance to launch the foundation on human rights for North Korean citizens as soon as possible remains unchanged,” the ministry said.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

Here is another example of no matter the subject Democrats will find a way to oppose President Trump:

A pair of Democratic senators on Wednesday introduced an amendment to the annual defense policy bill that would stop President Trump from withdrawing U.S. forces from South Korea without the Pentagon’s input.

The amendment “would help prevent the President from making a rash decision about troop reductions on the Korean Peninsula that negatively impacts our national security,” Sens. Tammy Duckworth (Ill.) and Chris Murphy (Conn.) said in a joint statement.

Introduced for the Fiscal 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the provision would stop a withdraw “unless the U.S. Secretary of Defense certifies it is in our national security interest and would not significantly undermine the security of our allies in the region.” [The Hill]

You can read more at the link.

I guess the next time a provocation cycle happens they can both just call and insult each other instead of using Twitter 😉 :

U.S. President Donald Trump said Friday he gave North Korean leader Kim Jong-un a direct phone number to reach him and that he plans to make a phone call to Kim.

“I can now call him. I gave him a very direct number,” he told reporters at the White House. “He can now call me if he has any difficulty. We have communication.”

His remarks come days after his first and historic encounter in Singapore with the leader of the reclusive state on Tuesday.

Trump also said he plans to personally call Kim on Sunday.

Trump and Kim declared in a joint text following the summit their commitment toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula while guaranteeing the security of Kim’s dynastic regime.  [Yonhap]

I wonder if Trump during the phone call will joke to Kim Jong-un to send him 25 million illegal Mexican immigrants?

We must not forget the people of North Korea whom has no voice and not allowed to speak because the dictator kills them and punishes three generations of their family members at this very moment.

— Yeonmi Park (박연미) (@YeonmiParkNK) June 13, 2018

Staff from Korea Post collect mattresses made by Daijin Bed Co., which have been found to release radiation at levels that exceed the safety standard, in Seoul on June 16, 2018. (Yonhap)

Here is yet another example of why President Trump calls them the “fake news” media:

Donald Trump threatened Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe he would ship 25 million Mexicans to his country, one of a series of bizarre missives that jarred fellow leaders at last week’s acrimonious G7 meet, according to a report on Friday.

The Group of Seven summit gathering of top industrialized democracies finished in disarray after the US president abruptly rejected its consensus statement and bitterly attacked Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Behind the scenes, Trump’s counterparts were dismayed by verbal jabs on topics ranging from trade to terrorism and migration, The Wall Street Journal said, quoting European officials who were present.

At one point he described migration as a big problem for Europe then said to Abe: “Shinzo, you don’t have this problem, but I can send you 25 million Mexicans and you’ll be out of office very soon,” creating a sense of irritation in the room, according to an EU official.  [AFP]

You can read more at the link, but Trump did not “threaten” Shinzo Abe as this article claims.  He was clearly using sarcasm to make a point to the people in the room.  Any journalist publishing articles insinuating that Trump literally meant to round up 25 million illegal immigrants and ship them to Japan are clearly dishonest and part of the fake news problem.

Over at the Diplomat there is an interesting article published about former US President Jimmy Carter’s failed attempt to remove US ground troops from South Korea during his term in office:

With U.S. President Donald Trump once more touting his desire to withdraw the 28,500 U.S. troops currently stationed in South Korea, it is perhaps worthwhile briefly examining the last time an American president attempted to remove U.S. forces from the Korean Peninsula. U.S. President Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s was ultimately stopped by congressional obstruction, the Pentagon, and the intelligence community, among others, from implementing a troop withdrawal policy he had repeatedly promised during his presidential campaign in 1976. Put otherwise, and to use 21st century Trumpian parlance: the so-called “deep state” stopped Carter from executing his plans.

During the 1976 presidential campaign — the same year two American soldiers were axed to death by North Korean soldiers in the demilitarized zone — Carter repeatedly voiced his desire to pull out the 40,000 American soldiers (out of which only 15,000 were combat troops) from South Korea, where they served as a de factotripwire to deter a North Korean invasion. For example, at a Foreign Policy Association luncheon that year Carter declared: “I believe that it will be possible to withdraw our ground forces from South Korea on a phased basis over a time span to be determined after consultation with both South Korea and Japan.”  [The Diplomat via a reader tip]

You can read much more at the link, but basically the intelligence community changed its assessment to state that North Korea had a military advantage over South Korea and removing US ground troops would only increase their advantage.  This gave opponents of Carter’s troop removal plan the backing they needed to oppose and eventually stop it.  President Carter has always been skeptical of the assessment and how the bureaucracy circled the wagons to stop his troop withdrawal strategy.

Carter wanted to pull out the ground troops to put pressure on South Korean President Park Chung-hee to implement democratic reforms.  Carter may have failed in his quest to remove US ground troops, but he did indirectly succeed in getting Park Chung-hee removed from office.  In October 1979, Park was assassinated by the Korean CIA chief Kim Jae-gyu as part of a coup attempt against him.  After the coup attempt failed, Kim said one of the reasons for the coup was to restore the US-ROK relationship that had been so badly damaged by Park’s rule.

So are there any lessons President Trump could learn from Carter’s failed bid to remove US ground troops from Korea if he decides to do that?  I don’t think so because of how different the circumstances are.  It is clear today that South Korea has a conventional military advantage over North Korea thus muting concerns that US military leadership may have.  When former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld moved entire combat brigade from South Korea in 2004 to send to Iraq there was little pushback because of the ROK military advantage.

If President Trump does decide to remove US troops from Korea as part of a larger deal over North Korea’s nuclear weapons, I suspect there would be little pushback compared to what Carter experienced.

Please leave anything you want to discuss in the comments section.

What do I think about today's joint agreement? It has zero practical value. The U.S. could have extracted serious concessions, but it was not done. N.Korea will be emboldened and the U.S. got nothing: https://t.co/FXkkURMnpC

— Andrei Lankov (@andreilankov) June 12, 2018

I have to admit I cringed a little bit when I first saw this, but the follow on criticism has been over the top:

Newly released video footage from North Korean state media shows President Donald Trump returning a salute to a North Korean military general during this week’s summit in Singapore, an extraordinary display of respect from a US president to a top officer of a hostile regime.

In the military, returning a salute from a military officer of a friendly foreign nation is common practice for US military officers and considered a display of military professionalism. There is no rule that a US president is obliged to return a salute, which is considered a sign of mutual respect.

After Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un walked down a colonnade to shake hands, the pair entered into a room filled with various members of Kim’s delegation, the video from North Korean broadcaster KCTV news shows.

Trump starts to shake hands with those in the room. Upon encountering North Korean Gen. No Kwang Chol, who was in full uniform, Trump first extends his hand, to which the general responds with a salute. Trump then salutes back, extends his hand again and the two men shake hands.  [CNN]

There’s no regulation that stipulates presidents must salute the troops. In fact, for the first 192 years of our republic, it didn’t happen. None of the first 38 commanders in chief did it. And some of those dudes had some serious military experience. Eisenhower? Grant? I mean, Teddy Roosevelt was a war hero. Surely he felt compelled to click his heels together and cut a perfect knife-handed salute when he passed a uniform service member, right? Wrong. It was literally something that Ronald Reagan made up one day.  [Task and Purpose]

A cursory check of photo archives shows that Obama on occasion returned a foreign official’s salute.  [Dallas Morning News]