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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Hanoi summit failure exposes Trump's weak diplomacy - WaPo Editorial Board
By Editorial Board February 28 at 11:38 AM
THE FAILURE of President Trumps summit meeting with Kim Jong Un revealed the fundamental weakness of Mr. Trumps strategy for addressing the growing nuclear threat from North Korea. The president supposed that his personal and improvisational diplomacy, featuring unwarranted and unseemly flattery of a murderous tyrant, would make possible the substantive steps toward disarmament that the regime has resisted for decades. Instead, he was presented by Mr. Kim with a patently unacceptable offer that left him no choice but to walk away.
Its good that he did walk away, but Mr. Trumps miscalculation leaves U.S.-North Korean relations in disarray, even as the regime continues to produce material for weapons and long-range missiles capable of striking the United States. It calls for a fundamental reshaping of the U.S. approach one that is more realistic about the nature of the Kim regime, including its horrific human rights violations.
If the administration had pursued a more substantive approach to the negotiations, Mr. Kim would have known the position he brought to Hanoi was a non-starter. By Mr. Trumps account, the 35-year-old ruler offered to shut down the Norths Yongbyon nuclear complex in exchange for the removal of all sanctions something that would have left his regime in possession of other nuclear facilities, not to mention its existing arsenal. (North Korea says it asked for nullification of five U.N. resolutions that contain most, but not all, sanctions.) Pyongyang has twice before struck deals to close Yongbyon, only to renege. Even if its closure were guaranteed in this instance, it would fall far short of the minimum the United States should require for the lifting of sanctions.
Mr. Kim may have believed that he could bamboozle Mr. Trump, who at their last meeting abruptly agreed to suspend U.S. military exercises with South Korea in exchange for an ambiguous statement about denulearization. Since then, Mr. Trump has waved around flattering letters he received from Mr. Kim, spoken about falling in love with him and ceased U.S. efforts to call attention to the crimes against humanity Mr. Kim is credibly accused of. Meanwhile, international economic pressure on the regime eased.
Even after the summits failure, Mr. Trump persisted in sending the wrong messages. At a news conference in Hanoi, he cast doubt on the U.S. intelligence communitys assessment that North Korea is continuing to expand its nuclear arsenal and declined to say whether he would still demand complete denuclearization before lifting sanctions. He again questioned the costs of the U.S.-South Korean military alliance.
Worst of all, Mr. Trump offered Mr. Kim a pass on the case of American Otto Warmbier, saying he accepted the dictators word that he did not know about the gross mistreatment that led to Warmbiers death. If Mr. Kim can obtain Mr. Trumps sanction for such atrocities, its no wonder he would offer only one-sided deals.
Mr. Trump said Mr. Kim had assured him that North Korea would not return to nuclear or missile testing; if that remains true, there will still be time and opportunity for negotiation. But it ought now to be clear that the presidents shallow and slapdash attempts at dealmaking are not going to succeed.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/the-hanoi-summit-failure-exposes-trumps-weak-diplomacy/2019/02/28/d922fac0-3b63-11e9-a2cd-307b06d0257b_story.html
DFW
(54,403 posts)If Trump had any diplomacy at all, we wouldn't be anywhere near an international pariah as we have become in the last 2 years.
The press needs to stop calling things what they are not. Mitch McConnell, Fox Noise and the Sinclair Group are NOT "conservative." Trump's crooked financial shenanigans are NOT "smart business," and his fumbling attempts at relations with world leaders do NOT constitute "diplomacy."
And his incoherent use of social media in the middle of the night is NOT "unorthodox." It is scarily delusional.