This is great, and I'm so proud of the Koreas. Have they asked the US to withdraw their military forces yet? Cause that's the *real* result KJU and China want, diminished US influence, and they were willing to offer up peace on the peninsula to get it. Genius move by Xi, really.
Trump has acted as a catalyst to bring about this historic moment in Korea by making America seem so crazy & unpredictable as to no longer be a helpful and reliable partner but rather a liability who needs to be gotten rid of, thus diminishing long built US influence in SE Asia.
Pres Trump's erratic behavior made the spectre of a live-fire Korean war, perhaps involving nuclear weapons, seem all too real. People in South Korea were legit terrified. Xi Jinping has now offered (via his proxy KJU) a way to alleviate S Korean's fear. The US pushed, Xi pulled.
Imagine being the President of S Korea. Within the span of months, Pres Trump made the US seem like 1) an unreliable, perhaps highly destructive, military partner who could involuntarily drag S Korea into war over his own ego (my button is bigger than KJU's), while also...
...2) making it quite clear there were few non-military advantages to being partnered with the US. Among other things, Pres Trump a) withdrew from the TPP, b) caused a long time steadying member of the US State Dept to resign, c) inilaterally & without warning imposed tariffs..
... on aluminum and steel, then e) sent a trade delegation headed by someone who wrote a book called "Death by China" to negotiate a bilateral deal designed to "Make America First (And S Korea Second"), all while ....
...3) practically insulting S Korea but importantly seeming to cut off communication by having no Ambassador to South Korea and instead sending the President's own ill-informed daughter to conduct diplomacy with the S Korean Preaident. Ivana, bless her heart...
...wasn't there to engage in back-and-forth or discuss and analyze with the S Korean President and his team what they wanted or needed and mutually determine the best way forward--no, she was there to act as messenger girl trusted by Trump to pass along the US plan of action...
...4) then appointing John Bolton as the US National Security Advisor, a man who'd just written weeks before an op-ed to the @WSJ making a legal case for a pre-emptive strike on North Korea. So, w the US a far less desirable trade partner & Trump terrifyingly threatening war...
...the President of South Korea was left with no alternative--engage in peace negotiations directly with KJU--a man who
executed his own Uncle and much of his family, and assassinated his own brother with Sarin. Think how desperate Trump made the S Korean gov't feel...
executed his own Uncle and much of his family, and assassinated his own brother with Sarin. Think how desperate Trump made the S Korean gov't feel...
...that that was the best path forward? Trump catalyzed all of this by diminishing the US attractiveness as a military ally and trade partner. Trump will no doubt take credit for peace in Korea, and he may well deserve it but for all the wrong reasons. /end
Will the S Koreans be willing to negotiate away THAAD? Will China want that gone first or last (after a phased withdrawal of US troops)?
