Tag: Kim Jung Il

As North Korea Shows, Trump Is An Awful Negotiator

I’m starting to wonder if Donald Trump, bestselling author of The Art of the Deal, just isn’t very good at making deals. His presidency has been a ceaseless torrent of promises about what he’ll achieve from negotiations with foreign leaders. But time and again, he ends up high and dry.

Right now, the administration is waiting to find out what the North Korean regime meant when it made the ominous vow to give the United States a “Christmas gift” if talks didn’t produce an agreement on nuclear weapons and economic sanctions by year’s end. No such accord has been reached, which confirms the bankruptcy of Trump’s strategy.

He started out in 2017 by threatening Kim Jong Un with “fire and fury” if he made threats. But then the two agreed to a 2018 meeting in Singapore — a made-for-TV spectacle that produced an agreement short on meaningful specifics. About all Trump got in return for giving Kim the propaganda opportunity was a halt in missile tests and the purported demolition of a test site. Continue reading

Trump praises North Korea after missile tests rattle region

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump bestowed praise Friday on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un following a flurry of short-range missile tests that rattled the region and lowered expectations for the resumption of nuclear talks between Washington and Pyongyang.

Trump issued a three-part tweet reflecting an approach to North Korea that emphasizes personal diplomacy. Despite widespread skepticism that Kim will give up his nuclear weapons program, Trump is attempting to coax Kim back into negotiations with flattery and by offering to help him achieve a better economic future for his country.

Trump tweeted that North Korea’s recent tests of short-range missiles weren’t part of the commitments he and Kim made at their historic June 2018 summit in Singapore, although he conceded they might be in violation of a U.N. resolution.

View the complete August 2 article by Matthew Lee and Deb Riechmann from the Associated Press on the PBS website here.

Trump cries ‘fake news’ — and urges change in libel laws — over joke that nailed his hate for Biden and love for Kim Jong Un

There is something particularly abhorrent about a political leader who disparages his fellow citizens on foreign soil and takes the side of murderous tyrants over American patriots. But that is precisely what Donald Trump has been doing while on his golf and sumo junket to Japan. He explicitly lashed out at his political foes in a way that borders on disloyalty and even betrayal.

When Trump landed in Tokyo, he almost immediately launched a hostile assault on Joe Biden, one of his potential opponents for president in 2020. In doing so he gleefully took sides with the America-hating North Korean dictator, Kim Jong Un. Trump tweeted that he “smiled when [Kim] called Swampman Joe Biden a low IQ individual.” Let’s set aside the fact that this exchange almost certainly never happened. It’s even worse if Trump invented it in his own diseased mind.

Trump later doubled down on these vile insults with comments during a press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. He told the world’s media that “I don’t take sides as to who I’m in favor of and who I’m not, but I can tell you that Joe Biden was a disaster.” Notice that he contradicted himself in the space of a single sentence by claiming to not take sides, and then taking sides against Biden.

View the complete May 28 article from News Corpse from Daily Kos on the AlterNet website here.

Trump’s North Korea Tweet Shows How ‘Kim Is Playing The President’

Proving that there’s still room for him to shock and disappoint the country, President Donald Trump sided with North Korean ruler Kim Jong-un again over the weekend, brushing off his recent missile launches and saying he smiled when the dictator called former Vice President Joe Biden “low IQ” and “worse.”

It’s not clear whether the insults worked for their narrow purpose — will even Trump’s followers join in laughing at Biden along with a murderous tyrant? But Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY) of the House Foreign Affairs Committee pointed out on Monday that, in addition to being a pathetic display in its own right, it showed how the president is still getting “played” by his friend in Pyongyang.

“He seems to side with, and the people that he likes, are people like Kim Jong-un, Putin, Orban, Erdogan, all strong-arm type people, living in close to fascist-type societies where it’s just dominated by the executive,” he said on CNN. “I think Kim is playing the president. He played him at the first summit. He played him at the second summit. So Kim realizes that the real low-IQ person is the president. And he can continue to play games with him all along, until Kim gets what he wants.”

View the complete May 27 article by Cody Fenwick from AlterNet on the National Memo website here.

North Korea remains a top threat despite diplomatic thaw, U.S. commanders say

The chief of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, Navy Adm. Philip Davidson, testified North Korea “remains the most immediate challenge.” Credit: Carolyn Kaster, AP Photo

North Korea remains a top threat to the U.S. despite a recent thaw in diplomatic relations, the commanders of U.S. forces in the Pacific and on the Korean Peninsula told the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday.

The commander of U.S. Forces Korea, Army Gen. Robert Abrams, noted a “significant reduction in tension” compared to the recent history of missile and nuclear tests by North Korea. But the four-star general cautioned the regime’s annual military exercises hadn’t changed in size, scope or timing.

“I remain clear-eyed about the fact that, despite a reduction in tensions along the DMZ and a cessation of strategic provocations coupled with public statements of intent to denuclearize, little to no verifiable change has occurred in North Korea’s military capabilities,” Abrams told senators.

View the complete February 12 article by Connor O’Brien on the Politico website here.

North Korea exposes Trump lie by ditching meeting on war hero remains

The following article by Tommy Christopher was posted on the ShareBlue.com website July 12, 2018:

Credit: Markus Schreiber, AP Photos

The Kim regime just showed how much Trump’s central boast about his North Korea ‘deal’ is a lie.

Since his embarrassing summit with Kim Jong Un, Trump has been going around bragging that North Korea has “already” returned the remains of Korean War casualties.

But North Korea exposed that lie by skipping a meeting meant to begin that process.

According to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency, North Korean officials failed to show up for a meeting with American officials on Thursday.

View the original article on the ShareBlue.com website here.

Satellite images raise alarms about North Korean nukes

The following article by Ellen Mitchell was posted on the Hill website June 30, 2018:

Satellite images showing North Korea making substantial improvements to one of its nuclear research facilities are raising alarms that the government has little interest in actually giving up its nuclear arsenal.

Just two weeks after President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed a deal committing the U.S. to security guarantees in exchange for North Korea denuclearizing, satellite images show the country making “rapid” improvements to its Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center, according to 38 North, which monitors the country.

NBC News also reported on Friday that U.S. intelligence agencies believe North Korea has increased its fuel production for nuclear missiles at several secret research sites, adding officials fear Kim may try to keep the sites hidden amid negotiations with the U.S.

View the complete article on the Hill website.

Trump wants “his people” to “sit up at attention” like North Koreans

The following article was posted on the Axios website June 15, 2018:

President Trump lavished praise on North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during a Fox News interview this morning. The president said the two had “great chemistry” and he respects that Kim is a “strong” leader who “wants to make his country great.”

“He speaks and his people sit up at attention. I want my people to do the same.”

 

Trump showed bizarre Hollywood-style ‘trailer’ to Kim Jong Un featuring Miami Beach condos

The following article by Ryan Koronowski was posted on the ThinkProgress website June 12, 2018:

This trailer has everything: babies, basketballs, bumper cars, speedboats, drones, horses running through water, and missiles.

During a private meeting this week aimed at denuclearizing North Korea, President Trump brought out an iPad and played Kim Jong Un a bizarre video laying out the stakes of the summit and the riches that could come to North Korea as a result of the agreement.

The video, edited to look and feel like a low-budget trailer of a bigger movie about Trump and Kim bringing peace to the world, also played before Trump’s press conference following the summit. Continue reading “Trump showed bizarre Hollywood-style ‘trailer’ to Kim Jong Un featuring Miami Beach condos”

White House claims Wall Street Journal misquoted Trump as saying he has a good relationship with Kim Jong Un

The following article by Anne Gearan was posted on the Washington Post website January 14, 2018:

President Trump spoke about Hawaii’s false missile alert, talks with North Korea and his disputed quote in a Wall Street Journal article on Jan. 14. (The Washington Post)

PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Trump claimed Sunday that the Wall Street Journal deliberately misquoted him as saying that he probably has a good relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

The White House is disputing the newspaper’s report that Trump, in an interview last week with several Journal reporters, said he has a good relationship with the nuclear-armed leader he has previously mocked as “Little Rocket Man.” Continue reading “White House claims Wall Street Journal misquoted Trump as saying he has a good relationship with Kim Jong Un”