A group of Islamic residents and South Korean activists holds a news conference condemning U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in front of the U.S. Embassy in Seoul on Dec. 12, 2017. (Yonhap)
I don’t see what is so surprising about President Trump’s comment, it is no secret that he has been pushing to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States:
While circling the sky near the inter-Korean border last week, U.S. President Donald Trump posed a question that later took the leader of South Korea’s ruling party by surprise.
According to Choo Mi-ae of the Democratic Party, Trump was on his Marine One helicopter to the heavily fortified demilitarized zone when he turned to White House chief economic director Gary Cohn and said: “I just saw something amazing. There are so many factories. Can’t they be built in the U.S.?”
The trip to the DMZ was later canceled due to fog and Trump had to turn back to Seoul to continue his two-day state visit. The trip was watched closely because Trump had threatened to use military options against North Korea and engaged in a war of words with the regime over its nuclear and missile programs.
“I think President Trump understood, while he was in the air for 30 minutes, that 25 million people were living in the area below him and that they would be wiped out in the event of war,” Choo said in a meeting with reporters in New York. “But I was so surprised when Director Cohn told me this story. Wasn’t (Trump) essentially saying we should build our auto parts factories in the U.S., too?” [Yonhap]
Here is the latest Presidential Twitter drama involving North Korea:
President Donald Trump is exchanging school yard taunts with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.
In a response to North Korea calling Trump’s speech in South Korea “reckless remarks by an old lunatic,” Trump tweeted from Hanoi on Sunday morning: “Why would Kim Jong-un insult me by calling me ‘old,’ when I would NEVER call him ‘short and fat?'”
Trump goes on to say sarcastically, “Oh well, I try so hard to be his friend — and maybe someday that will happen!” [Stars & Stripes]
You can read more at the link, but President Trump has called Kim Jong-un a “little Rocket Man” in the past.
What a waste of time if these CNN journalists thought their “man-on-the-street” interviews in Pyongyang were going to reveal anything different than the Kim regime’s propaganda talking points:
Ri Won Gil, an editor, told CNN Trump “knows nothing” about life in North Korea.
US President Donald Trump had already flown to China by the time ordinary North Koreans heard he’d addressed South Korea’s National Assembly.
In a damning speech on Wednesday, Trump called the isolated communist country “a hell that no person deserves.” The rebuttal from North Koreans was equally harsh.
One woman CNN spoke to on the streets of Pyongyang called Trump’s assertion “foolish,” “absurd” and another word CNN cannot print. “The reality here is very different. We’re leading a happy life,” Ri Yong Hui, a house wife in Pyongyang, told CNN.
North Korean state media reported that Trump had spoken on Thursday, but did not include concrete details of his speech, in which the President slammed Pyongyang’s human rights abuses.
The North Korean state newspaper Rodong Sinmun characterized Trump’s words as “garbage spewing like gunpowder out of Trump’s snout like garbage that reeks of gun powder to ignite war.”
Coverage on state television and in newspapers focused on a small number of protesters outside the National Assembly, despite the fact that they were outnumbered by those rallying in support of the US President.
CNN’s government minders allowed us to reveal the actual contents of what Trump said to citizens on the streets of Pyongyang, agreeing to take us down to a busy street corner and interview citizens.
We approached several people. Most were unwilling to speak to us, but not Ri.
“Trump has no right to talk about human rights,” Ri said, as the government minders translated for her. “He’s a simple war maniac.” [CNN]
You can read the rest at the link, but everyone interviewed said the same thing. It is pretty clear the only people talking to the journalists were those cleared by the Kim regime to speak to CNN to push the government’s anti-Trump talking points. If these CNN journalists thought anyone in Pyongyang was going to tell a bunch of foreigners surrounded by government minders and say anything negative about North Korea they are absolute fools. If they are not fools that means they knew full well they would receive government propaganda and they went ahead and published it any way likely because it was anti-Trump.
It figures that the Moon Jae-in administration would find a way to stick to the Japanese during President Trump’s visit:
U.S. President Donald Trump hugs sex slavery victim Lee Yong-soo at a state dinner at Cheong Wa Dae in Seoul on Tuesday. /Yonhap
The rightwing government in Tokyo was duly incensed when Korea served U.S. President Donald Trump shrimp caught near Korea’s easternmost islets of Dokdo, to which Japan maintains a flimsy colonial claim.
Worse in the eyes of the nationalists in Japan was the invitation to a state dinner for Trump on Tuesday of a victim of imperial Japan’s sexual enslavement of women during World War II.
Tokyo protested through diplomatic channels that Cheong Wa Dae’s invitation of sex slavery victim Lee Yong-soo to the state dinner is “against the purport” of a 2015 agreement to compensate the women, which was once described as “a final and irreversible resolution,” according to the Yomiuri Shimbun on Wednesday.
The controversial deal, which trades indirect compensation for a promise to remove memorials for the victims from the vicinity of Japanese diplomatic missions, makes no mention of what events the victims of the atrocity can or cannot be invited to.
The new government of President Moon Jae-in wants to reverse it. [Chosun Ilbo]
You can read more at the link, but why were the victims of Chinese and North Korean atrocities not invited to the state dinner?
The fog can get very think around the Imjim River area where Panmunjom is located. I have been out in the field before north of the Imjim where people got lost because of how thick the fog was and had to yell for people to assist them to get back to their vehicle. If the fog was that thick I can understand why the Secret Service would not want to land the helicopter. However, you would think they would have had a Plan B to get the President there by car:
A surprise visit by President Donald Trump to the heavily fortified Korean demilitarized zone was thwarted by bad weather Wednesday — a day after Trump modulated his aggressive rhetoric and urged North Korea to come to the negotiating table.
Trump had been scheduled to make the unannounced early-morning trip to the DMZ amid heightened tensions between the United States and North Korea over Pyongyang’s nuclear program.
Marine One left Seoul at daybreak and flew most of the way to the DMZ but was forced to turn back just five minutes out due to poor weather conditions. Reporters traveling in a chinook helicopter as part of the president’s envoy saw fog out the helicopters’ windows, and weather reports from near the heavily fortified border showed misting conditions and visibility below one mile. Pilots, officials said, could not see the other helicopters in the air.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the president was disappointed he couldn’t make the trip. “I think he’s pretty frustrated,” she told reporters traveling with the president. “It was obviously something he wanted to do.”
Before he left for Asia, a White House official had ruled out the DMZ trip for Trump, claiming the president didn’t have time on his schedule and that DMZ visits have become a little cliché.
But Sanders said the visit had been planned well before Trump’s departure for Asia. The trip was kept secret, Sanders said, for security reasons.
Trump had been scheduled to make the visit with South Korean president Moon Jae-in, who traveled separately and landed about a 20-minute drive from the DMZ. Sanders said the military and the U.S. Secret Service had deemed that landing would not be safe, and Trump deferred to them. [Stars & Stripes]
Madeleine Albright is the latest person to be critical of President Trump’s praising of South Korean golfer Sung-hyun Park who won the US Women’s Open at the President’s golf club in New Jersey:
Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright called out President Donald Trump Wednesday for promoting one of his golf courses during a speech before South Korea’s legislature.
While praising South Korea’s achievements, Trump told the National Assembly Wednesday (local time) that Korean golfers are “some of the best on Earth.”
“In fact, and you know what I’m going to say, the Women’s U.S. Open was held this year at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, and it just happened to be won by a great Korean golfer,” he said, referring to Park Sung-hyun.
Asked to comment on MSNBC, Albright said, “What a waste. Maybe he should have stuck with the business he was in before.” [Yonhap]
Anyway I look at the President’s comment as something he said to try and relate to the audience that he was speaking to. Only people looking for anything to criticize the President would take his comment to mean he was promoting his golf club.
It seems that when President Trump goes on these foreign trips he likes to stick to his prepared script which really seems to help articulate the message he is trying to make. I think the message to North Korea was made quite clear during his speech to the ROK National Assembly:
President Donald Trump speaks at the National Assembly in Seoul, Wednesday. Trump was on a two-day official visit to South Korea, the second stop on his 12-day tour of Asia. / Yonhap
U.S. President Donald Trump stressed “peace through strength” in his speech at the National Assembly, Wednesday, giving a stern warning to North Korea.
“The regime has interpreted America’s past restraint as weakness,” Trump said referring to North Korea.“Do not underestimate us.Do not try us.We will defend our common security, our shared prosperity and our sacred liberty.”
The U.S.president cited the country’s military assets deployed around the peninsula ― the world’s three largest aircraft carriers, loaded to the maximum with F-35 and F-18 fighter jets, in addition to nuclear submarines.
“The weapons you are acquiring are not making you safer,” Trump said.“We will offer a path to a much better future,” he added, on the condition of Pyongyang’s “total denuclearization.”
This was the first address by a sitting American leader here in nearly a quarter century.South Korean lawmakers applauded the speech 22 times, particularly when the American leader lauded the nation’s flourishing democracy and eye-opening economic development.
The U.S.leader dedicated most of his 35-minute speech to awakening the atrocities taking place in North Korea ― forced labor, starvation, sexual exploitation, murder and torture ― labeling the country as “hell.”
“The regime has made numerous lethal incursions in South Korea, attempted to assassinate senior leaders, attacked South Korean ships and tortured Otto Warmbier, ultimately leading to that fine young man’s death.”
He highlighted its stark difference with the southern part of the peninsula that features the “stunning skyline of Seoul.” The president described the armistice line between the two Koreas as a line “between peace and war, between decency and depravity, between law and tyranny, between hope and total despair.” [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link and you can watch his full comments at the below video:
Overall I was pretty impressed with his speech especially when he highlights all the human rights abuses happening in North Korea which is often overlooked by politicians and the media.
