I'm no friend of the DPRK as you can see in my pas posts this canceling of the summit with no reason given right after the DPRK destroyed a test sight shows a lack of strategy and furthers his image of impulsivness. Unless he's ready to go to war which I doubt trump is ready for he's hurting his positioning by just snubbing the north with no public reason.
What really strikes me in all this is how totally Trump set himself up to get played. He paid no heed to the warning of NK's past history of negotiating in bad faith before piling on demands and just assumed he was uniquely qualified to be treated differently.
The hubris before any deal had even been sealed was astounding. Minting a “challenge coin” with his and Kim's face on it to commemorate the upcoming summit? Just WOW!
Kim just waited and watched while Trump preened and puffed before locking himself into a time and a place. He then just sticks to past negotiating form of his father before him by cancelling a planning meeting and signaling “de-nuclearization” was not up for debate. This was all widely predicted by area experts. Trump was either faced with attending the summit in which de-nuclearization would not be up for discussion, or canceling a meeting which he had banked so much both domestically and internationally.
He chose the latter to save himself from further possible humiliation. But I'm in agreement with you that Kim had put up enough signs that things *could* have been different this time around after the release of hostages, the declaration of the Korean war being over in rapprochement with South Korea, and taking steps by destroying test sites.
After all that preening he should have at least followed through to see whether he could have made headway against their rhetorical stance. He really didn't have all that much more to lose in terms of 'face saving' compared to the humiliation of canceling a summit he had already minted a commemorative coin over.
I don't think trump was played by kim. Kim Jung genuinely appeared to be afraid of having his regime removed after his visit to china. Obviously kim jung was going to sable rattle and trump should have walked back the summit talk back then. What trump shoulden't have done is cancel the B-52 flyby from Japan and he certainly should not have canceled the summit right after kim jung destroyed a nuclear tunnel.
Some how I don't think kim jung is going to start up testing right away. If he does trump is put in a bad position and must react. As it stands now Kim Jung has to try to find a way to save face and fast. Kim Jung will wait for the worlds reaction especially Chinas reaction before making a move now. If trump is going to play this game I seriesly hope he's ready to go to war cause cause otherwise Kim Jung may just infact call his bluff.
I'm waiting to see if the white house tries to send a softer message now that the summit has been canceled. We all know how confusing the Whitehouse can be with announcements.
Well he probably played himself more than Kim played him, since there does seem to be the major misinterpretation of what NK originally promised with regards to de-nuclearization and his eagerness to get a deal done with some responsibility going to the SK president for maybe overstating what NK was willing to do. But ultimately it's on him to confirm from direct negotiations that NK was really ready to unilaterally disarm in the first place.
Here's a paste from a few days ago what Robert Kelly, an American Professor of Political Science & Diplomacy at Pusan National University in South Korea tweeted in analysis from ground zero:
1) It increasingly looks like the Moon administration overstated North Korea’s willingness to deal. Moon will probably get an earful over that.
2a) Moon likely exaggerated this to tie Trump to a diplomatic track to prevent him from backsliding into last year’s war-threats which scared the daylights out of South Koreans. If Trump were less vain and had allowed his national security staff to vet the NK offer, he might have
2b) learned this. But instead, he accepted the NK summit offer 45 minutes after he was told of it, without even telling the White House staff, and then drank his own kool-aid watching Fox telling him for weeks that he deserved a Nobel. Now comes the hang-over.
3) Flattering Trump into diplomacy is likely also why Moon’s government credited Trump with driving NK to negotiation through maximum pressure and suggested that Trump receive a Nobel peace prize.
4) It is an open secret in Korea that this was just flattering Trump to prevent him from starting a war. No one actually believes it. My students & colleagues laugh at the suggestion. No one thought the western media wd actually start seriously debating it. Trump is loathed here.
5a) The problem, of course, is that none of this Trump-whispering is true: NK is not going to denuclearize; NK was not driven to negotiate by maximum pressure (they chose to negotiate, because they established nuclear deterrence with the US mainland); and Trump does not deserve a
5b) Nobel, because, well, I am pretty sure that threatening national genocide at the United Nations – ‘totally destroy North Korea’ – is a disqualifier.
6a) The great irony, which US conservative media will never admit of course, is that Trump actually drove SK to the table, not NK. Trump scared SKs so much last year, that Moon’s approval rating has shot up into the 80s%, even though he won with just 41% a year ago, and approval
6b) of the summit process is in the 90s%. So if you are a NK hawk, Trump's rhetoric last year made things worse, not better, by scaring up a dovish consensus for Moon to make concessions and keep Trump at bay.
7a) At this point, the best thing to do would be to postpone the summit until greater common ground among the 3 players can be found and let experts on the issues hammer out some consensus. But Moon likely opposes that because any delay could open political space for Bolton, and Trump likely desperately wants this summit for the TV, attn, & a political 'win' he can market at home to change the story f/ his scandals & blunt a looming blue wave. So the summit will prolly still happen, even tho, scarily, w/ 3 weeks to go, no1 really knows how it will unfold
I just read that last week the DPRK stood up diplamats in Singapore who were intending to finilize the summit meeting. So the DPRK was already playing games. I think calling off the meeting was the right thing to after all.
I'd add that I agree that China still remains the wildcard in all this. They could still force Kim's hand to get something done, but I think the current trade negotiations with China muddles any prognostication of how that might play out and we'll have to just wait to see what emerges.
Give it time, they’ll be at the table soon enough. We have 7 more years to take care of business. It would be best to do so before Ivanka is elected for her 2 terms. It’s best to let the hardcore negotiations be handled by Donaldus Maximus.
And now it’s come out that NK was a no show at peace talks planning. And was unreachable. Of course the dumbass leftwing lemmings will take after their idiot demokkkrat slavemaster Nancy Pilosi and celebrate the NK tyrant. Because of course, that’s what demokkkrats truly aspire to be. The lemmings will deny this as instructed by their demokkkrat slavemasrers in the media.
In the end. They’ll all celebrate. And as soon as they’re done hyperventilating, the meetings will occur and they’ll all end up looking like idiots as always. Can’t wait for November.
That's why you never prance and preen about a done deal until it's actually done. Especially with North Korea when they have a history of pulling stunts like this after pretending to negotiate in good faith.
Trump thinks he's the first person ever to negotiate with North Korea. WHAHAHAHAH. What a dunce.
So easy to want war on the keyboard and not go fight for it. I hope there is a war so when it's time for the draft we can point to Trump voters to sign up in droves :).
I knew the deal was dead once the Iran deal died. Anyhow build up those nukes Iran and DPRK so we can get this shit started already. Prolonged peace is dull and dulls the mind.