Tag: Donald Trump

South Korea tries to ignore Trump’s criticism of their government over North Korea:  ‘They worry he’s kind of nuts.’ https://t.co/m5KsyvbMoO pic.twitter.com/kFOOiSiwKX

— Anna Fifield (@annafifield) September 3, 2017

I guess if you discount political executions, mass malnourishment of its people, gulags, military attacks on neighbors, state sponsored criminal activity, and being an international pariah than I guess yes you could make a comparison between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un:

Not to be outdone, North Korea’s military revealed a detailed plan to strike the U.S. island territory of Guam, which hosts key Air Force and Navy bases. After further brinkmanship between the two leaders, North Korea’s state-run media showed footage of Kim himself reviewing the plans. But the leader said he would not attack unless the U.S. struck first, effectively ending an imminent missile scare.

While a number of Western media outlets portrayed this as a retreat on Kim’s part, North Korea expert Michael Madden says it actually boosted Kim’s credibility on the international stage.

“This allowed Kim Jong Un to portray himself as the more experienced leader,” Madden, a visiting scholar at the U.S.-Korea Institute, tells Newsweek, adding that Kim also appeared more likely to defer to his advisers than Trump.

“Who would have thought that when we said ‘let cooler heads prevail,’ it would be the 33-year-old leader of the DPRK?” said Madden, referring to North Korea’s official title: the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Trump hailed Kim’s “very wise and well-reasoned decision” in a tweet Wednesday, but Town and Madden agree that Kim has come out stronger from the latest crisis. While Trump fired off a number of statements that were widely challenged at home—including the claim that he had improved the country’s nuclear arsenal and that U.S. missiles were “locked and loaded”—Kim remained largely silent and delegated his words to lower-level outlets of his government’s propaganda, allowing ample room for de-escalation. Even his strategic missile force’s Guam attack plan included language that offered North Korea a way out from actually going through with it.

“Kim has been very careful with his words as not to back himself into a corner by shooting from the hip, like the Trump administration,” Town says.  [Newsweek]

You can read the rest at the link.

It looks like there is once again a path towards deescalation with North Korea:

North Korea has made no provocations since its July 28 test-firing of what it claimed was an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), though it has more recently threatened to fire missiles toward Guam.

President Trump said Tuesday that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has begun to “respect” Washington, suggesting his administration is taking a positive view on a possible thaw in U.S.-North Korea relations.

“I respect the fact that I believe he (Kim) is starting to respect us,” Trump said at a rally in Phoenix, Arizona, according to Bloomberg. “Maybe, probably not, something positive will come out of it.”

Earlier in the day, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said dialogue between the United States and North Korea could be possible in the “near future,” welcoming what he called the “restraint” the Kim regime had shown recently with its nuclear and missile programs.

“I think it is worth noting, we have had no missile launches or provocative acts on the part of, or provocative actions, on the part of North Korea since the U.N. Security Council (UNSC) resolution,” Tillerson said at the State Department.

“I am pleased to see that the regime in Pyongyang has demonstrated restraint. We hope this is the signal we have been looking for, that they are ready to restrain provocative acts. And perhaps we are seeing a pathway in the near future to having some dialogue.”  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but I would be some what surprised if they don’t fire at least a short range test missile into the Sea of Japan in response to the ongoing UFG military exercise.

Here is another example of the equivalency many journalists try to make between Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump:

I think if I really think about it, I’m a little concerned. But it’s also in the sense that I’m concerned about how easily accessible nuclear weapons are increasingly in this world. And it’s not just North Korea. It’s the United States, it’s Russia, it’s all these different countries.

There’s another layer of hypocrisy in the way we report about North Korea. Like, the United States owns nuclear weapons, but why is North Korea in the axis of evil that doesn’t get to because it’s supposed to be the less rational one? I’m just generally afraid of nuclear weapons in general. I’m just as afraid of Trump owning nuclear weapons as Kim Jong Un owning one.  [VOX]

You can read more of the interview at the link, but does this South Korean journalist believe Japan should get nuclear weapons because everyone should have the right to pursue them?  That is the obvious logic being advocated for here.

Plus in my opinion anyone who thinks President Trump is just going to wake up one day and authorize a nuclear weapons strike should not be taken seriously.  The same can be said for anyone who thinks Kim Jong-un is just going to wake up one day and launch a nuclear weapons strike as well.

It seems that further an American is away from the US mainland the better their perspective becomes on the recent rhetorical wars between President Trump and Kim Jong-un because I think Guam Governor Eddie Calvo is correct in his assessment:

Guam’s leader said Monday that “sometimes a bully can only be stopped with a punch in the nose”, in a spirited defence of President Donald Trump’s rhetoric against North Korea which has the island in its crosshairs.

While Trump’s critics accuse him of inflaming tensions with Pyongyang, Guam governor Eddie Calvo said he was grateful the US leader was taking a strong stance against North Korean threats to his Pacific homeland.

“Everyone who grew up in the schoolyard in elementary school, we understand a bully,” Calvo told AFP.

“(North Korean leader) Kim Jong-Un is a bully with some very strong weapons… a bully has to be countered very strongly.”

Calvo, a Republican, said Trump was being unfairly criticised over his handling of the North Korea crisis, which escalated when Pyongyang announced plans to launch missiles toward Guam in a “crucial warning”.

He said North Korea had threatened Guam — a US territory which hosts two large military bases and is home to more than 6,000 military personnel — at least three times since 2013.

Trump has responded by threatening “fire and fury”, warning last week that the US military was “locked and loaded” to respond to any aggression.

“President Trump is not your conventional elected leader, what he says and how he says it is a lot different from what was said by previous presidents,” Calvo said.

But he pointed out previous presidents had also used strong words to warn off Pyongyang, including Barack Obama who said last year that “we could, obviously, destroy North Korea with our arsenals”.

“One president (Obama) said it one way, cool and calmly with a period… the other said fire and fury with an exclamation point, but it still leads to the same message,” Calvo said.

He rejected suggestions that Trump and the North Korean dictator were as bad as each other when it came to the sabre-rattling playing out in the western Pacific.

“Well there’s only one guy that has vaporised into a red mist his uncle or a general because he fell asleep in a meeting with an anti-aircraft gun, that’s Kim Jong-Un,” he said.

“There’s only one guy that’s killed his brother with one of the most toxic nerve agents ever created, that’s Kim Jong-Un.”  [AFP]

You can read more at the link, but the statement that Governor Calvo is referring to is when President Obama threatened that the US could destroy North Korea in response to a submarine launched ballistic missile test just last year.  The media did not freak out and it did not lead to a global crisis where everyone thought war was imminent.

The phone call between President Trump and Guam Governor Eddie Calvo may have been about assuring the island the US government completely supports them, but it is amazing how many news headlines I saw that focused on the joke Trump made about how the current tensions will improve Guam tourism:

If there’s one thing that Guam does not have to worry about while the tiny island is in the nuclear cross hairs of North Korea, it’s tourism, President Trump told the island’s governor in a phone call made public on Saturday.

The threat by North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, to create “an enveloping fire” around the tiny United States territory in the Western Pacific will bolster Guam tourism “tenfold,” Mr. Trump said in the recorded conversation with Gov. Eddie Calvo.

The recording was put on the Republican governor’s Facebook page and other social media accounts.

Mr. Trump said: “I have to tell you, you have become extremely famous all over the world. They are talking about Guam; and they’re talking about you.” And when it comes to tourism, he added, “I can say this: You’re going to go up, like, tenfold with the expenditure of no money.”  [New York Times]

You can read more at the link and watch the video of the phone call below:

Here is President Trump’s response to North Korea’s recent threats made against Guam:

 

Military solutions are now fully in place,locked and loaded,should North Korea act unwisely. Hopefully Kim Jong Un will find another path!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 11, 2017

In his latest broadside at North Korea, President Trump bluntly warned dictator Kim Jong Un on Friday that the U.S. military was “locked and loaded” in case the country should “act unwisely.”

“Military solutions are now fully in place, locked and loaded, should North Korea act unwisely. Hopefully Kim Jong Un will find another path!” Trump said on Twitter.

It was not clear exactly what sort of “military solutions” Trump was referring to or what precisely would constitute unwise action by the North Korean leader.

But North Korea said on Thursday it was putting together a plan to fire four missiles in the direction of the U.S. territory of Guam, a Pacific island that is home to large American military installations.

Trump’s warning came a day after Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told reporters in Silicon Valley that the U.S. effort to “get this under control” was “diplomatically led,” “gaining traction,” and “gaining diplomatic results.”

Mattis underlined that he wanted to “stay right there right now” and warned that the cost of conflict could be “catastrophic,” but also said that when it comes to the U.S. military, “we are ready.”  [Yahoo News]

You can read more at the link.

It will be interesting to see if this statement from Lindsey Graham gets China attention or not to reign in North Korea’s nuclear ambitions:

U.S. President Donald Trump has said he will go to war with North Korea if the communist regime continues to threaten the U.S. with its nuclear and missile programs, an influential Republican senator said Tuesday.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) relayed his discussions with the president on NBC’s “Today Show.”

“There will be a war with North Korea over the missile program if they continue to try to hit America with an ICBM,” the senator said. “He’s told me that. I believe him. If I were China, I would believe him, too, and do something about it. You can stop North Korea, militarily or diplomatically.”  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

I think President Trump is going to continue to be disappointed by China because nothing has changed that has made it in their interest to do anything about North Korea:

In a pair of tweets Saturday evening, President Trump said he is “disappointed” in China after North Korea fired an intercontinental ballistic missile into the Sea of Japan.

“I am very disappointed in China. Our foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet they do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk,” Trump wrote, adding, “We will no longer allow this to continue. China could easily solve this problem!”  [ABC News]

You can read more at the link.

So much for all the mandatory transgender training the US military has been going through as President Trump has now reinstated the transgender servicemember ban:

President Trump announced on Wednesday morning that the U.S. military would not “accept or allow” any transgender service members.

In a series of tweets, the commander in chief argued that too much is at stake in the military’s current operations for it to be “burdened” by the medical costs of transgender people or the “disruption” he says transgender service members would cause.  [Yahoo News]

You can read more at the link, but I really think this whole policy would have been less controversial if it did not include free sex change and hormone treatment for new recruits.  Additionally controversy only increased when it was announced that transgenders that chose not to undergo the surgery would be allowed to shower with the sex they identify with.

With the end of the don’t ask don’t tell policy I predicted it would be a lot to do about nothing which is what happened.  Gay servicemembers were not demanding special treatment, just the ability to serve openly.  If transgenders were just told they can serve openly and must have any surgeries completed prior to joining the military I think there would have been much less push back on this policy that led to President Trump overturning it.