Tag: Donald Trump

Legitimizing and praising a dictator does not give us a real and permanent peace. It’s a delusional and fake peace that Trump wants us to believe. We must hold North Korea’s murderous Kim dictator accountable. We must fight for a world where justice… https://t.co/S44Xcp3Jvq

— Yeonmi Park (박연미) (@YeonmiParkNK) June 21, 2018

That's because from what we can see so far, it looks like a really shitty deal — far worse than the Iran JCPOA, far worse than Agreed Frameworks I & II, almost sure to consolidate Kim Jong-un's domestic control, nuclear status & hegemony over South Korea. https://t.co/4qVpZlCYw7

— Joshua Stanton (@freekorea_us) June 17, 2018

After opening the article bashing the President Trump for the recent Singapore summit, the article then goes on to explain that the summit was a huge success in the opinion of South Koreans:

In South Korea, however, the prism is different. Discussions center less on Trump’s achievements or lack of them, or his failures to live up to his own word, and more on the possibilities his summit opened up — in particular his new relationship with Kim. Which is why they welcome phone calls between the pair.

Singapore was not a failure for many in South Korea, but an opportunity.

According to a Gallup survey of more than 1,000 people two days after the summit, two thirds of the population said they think the Kim/Trump meeting was a success. Only one in 10 thought it a failure.  [CNN]

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?

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.

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]

Over at One Free Korea he has a posting up that analyzes the recent joint statement between President Trump and Kim Jong-un:

Yesterday, I said the best we could hope for from the Trump-Kim summit would be “a vague agreement that North Korea will denuclearize, without Trump making any concessions for such a nebulous promise.” We have that vague agreement (full text here). It is so vague, in fact, that it’s hard to even say what concessions were given, implied, or will be given in the coming months.

Historically, vague agreements are the agreements Pyongyang loves. One the one hand, it will put an implausibly narrow interpretation on its own concessions: “What you do mean this includes uranium?,” or, “We agreed to stop missile tests, not satellite launch vehicle tests!” On the other hand, it will interpret our own concessions broadly. Here’s a useful map of its demandsto guide your understanding of what it will demand next. What’s clear is that Pyongyang will interpret the terms very differently from what Trump and his cabinet have said they would demand.  [One Free Korea]

As always I recommend reading OFK’s entire well thought out analysis at the link.

I fully agree that everyone should be skeptical of this joint statement.  However, just like the concessions the Kim regime has made so far, the concessions the Trump administration have made are all easily reversible.  Something else to keep in mind is that we don’t know what was privately agreed to during discussions with the regime.  I think we should wait for some time to pass to see how this plays out before we declare this summit just more failed diplomacy between the US and North Korea.  If the Trump administration drops sanctions for little to nothing in return, that should be the trigger to hit the panic button and declare that Groundhog Day has restarted once again with North Korea.

However, the way President Trump has criticized past administrations for getting little to nothing in return from North Korea in past agreements, I would be very surprised if he chooses this route.  I tend to think that the Trump administration is giving the Kim regime one last chance to rejoin the world community and if they don’t reach a comprehensive agreement sanctions will remain in place.  As long as the sanctions are in place ROK President Moon Jae-in will not be able to invest billions into North Korea, re-open the near-slave labor Kaesong Industrial Complex, and open the tourism projects on North Korea’s east coast.

This causes me to think that current negotiations are about what irreversible actions the Kim regime must execute in return for dropping of sanctions.  If the North Koreans drag out negotiations like they historically have done, the Trump administration can easily turn back on the Key Resolve joint exercise scheduled each spring and implement more sanctions to pressure the regime to get a deal done.  If the Kim regime begins another provocation cycle in response the Trump administration can say they have tried everything to peacefully resolve the nuclear issue and military action may become a more viable option.

Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that and diplomacy between the US and North Korea works for once, but history does indicate we should all remain skeptical until we actually see it happen.

A fan of President Trump’s decision to stop joint wargames against North Korea is Guam Governor Eddie Calvo:

Gov. Eddie Calvo met with President Donald Trump as the president made a pit stop at Andersen Air Force Base early Wednesday morning.

Trump was on his return trip from Singapore after a historic summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. (……)

“The war games are very expensive. We pay for a big majority of them. We fly in bombers from Guam,” Trump said after meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jung Un.

“I said — when I first started, I said, ‘Where do the bombers come from?’  ‘Guam.  Nearby.’ I said, ‘Oh, great, nearby.  Where’s nearby?’  ‘Six and a half hours.’ Six and a half hours — that’s a long time for these big massive planes to be flying to South Korea to practice and then drop bombs all over the place, and then go back to Guam. I know a lot about airplanes; it’s very expensive. And I didn’t like it.”

Calvo said he supports Trump’s decision to halt bomber flights from Andersen. Calvo said the exercises were “threatening,” and put Guam in North Korea’s crosshairs.  [Guam PDN]

You can read more at the link, but Governor Calvo as was reported to have told Trump that the people of Guam breathed a “big sigh of relief” after the summit since the island has been repeatedly threatened over the years by North Korea for missile attacks.

President Trump is definitely working hard to sell the public on how successful the Trump-Kim summit in Singapore was in response to his critics:

U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted Wednesday that the world should feel “safer” because North Korea poses no nuclear threat to the world.

“Everybody can feel much safer than the day I took office. There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea. Meeting with Kim Jong Un was an interesting and very positive experience. North Korea has great potential for the future!” he wrote just after he returned to Washington from a historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Singapore on Tuesday.

“Before taking office people were assuming that we were going to War with North Korea. President Obama said that North Korea was our biggest and most dangerous problem. No longer,” he added.

Earlier he tweeted several times defending the summit, which critics said lacked specifics and fell short of the U.S. goal of complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization.

“Great progress was made on the denuclearization of North Korea. Hostages are back home, will be getting the remains of our great heroes back to their families, no missiles shot, no research happening, sites closing,” Trump tweeted.

“Got along great with Kim Jong-un who wants to see wonderful things for his country. As I said earlier today: Anyone can make war, but only the most courageous can make peace!” he added.

In later postings, Trump thanked Kim for taking a “bold” step toward a “bright future” for his people and said that their Tuesday summit helps the world stay a big step away from potential nuclear catastrophe.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but you can read my analysis of the summit at this link.  What will be interesting to see in the coming weeks what the domestic North Korean media puts out about this summit.