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As usual, Trump’s tweets on North Korea are just baloney: 1. Pompeo, Bolton, and others explicitly said we were going into this with our eyes open, we were going to get results fast, we were going to get a lot (CVID), etc. None of that has happened, and the NKs are pulling all /1
their old tricks like playing the US and SK against each other and slow-walking the whole process. And Trump still hasn’t even gotten an inventory of the nuclear & missile materials on which to base our bargaining with them over denuclearization. So, no, things are not going /2
fine. 2. Trump continues to place unjustified faith in his personal relationship with Kim Jong Un, as if they’re chummy members at Mar a Lago. Trump has met Kim once for a few hours (in SG), talked through a translator, and got nothing to show for it.That’s not a relationship. /3
3. There’s no evidence that Kim wants broad-based growth in NK. I don’t know why people keep saying that. Sure, he wants enough growth to avoid a repeat of the famine, to be more independent of foreign assistance, to fill in holes in failed state service provision and not face /4
popular discontent or even food riots. But that’s bolstering the dictatorship, not a major opening or Deng-style reform. Maybe Trump and Moon have inside information on this, bc they and others keep throwing this around. But there’s not much actual evidence after 7 years of /5
Kim’s leadership that this taking place. Small-scale, grey marker capitalism at the bottom is better than nothing but that’s not really Dengism, and a lot of is still technically illegal and just tolerated, probably bc the state can’t provide well anymore. 4. All Trump has /6
gotten on the strategic issues is the informal test halt. That’s good after last year’s constant tests, but there’s a lot still on the table. I figure Trump has to talk like this, bc he needs to keep up the appearance of a foreign policy success for domestic reasons. But it /7
should be pretty clear at this point that the NKs are setting the pace and that we’re locked in the same back-and-forth slog with them as before. 5. The promise of 2018’s summit diplomacy - that direct meetings between Kim, Trump, and Moon - would leapfrog the bureaucrats and /8
generate a big-bang breakthrough has not materialized. Now we have all the time in the world to negotiate with NK, Trump says, even though this spring Pompeo & Bolton were saying the opposite. Whatevs. In short, they probably won’t give up much, they’ll ask a lot in return, & /9
verification is going to be hellishly complicated on anything they do surrender. We all need to start adjusting to NK as a nuclear weapons state and think about management and missile defense. END
