President Trump’s meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has generated praise, criticism and many unanswerable questions regarding the future between the two nations.
One of the first criticisms made as the meeting concluded and the president began describing the meeting on his Twitter account was in regards to the canceling of “war games” orchestrated jointly between the U.S. and South Korea every year.
The president’s revelation that he planned to put the “war games” on hold as part of the agreement brokered with the North Korean leader last week to work “toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” was criticized by many.
They complained that the staging of armed forces and engaging in military maneuvers were purely “defensive” and in no way meant as any sort of threat to the North.
The U.S. and South Korea hold major joint exercises every spring and summer in South Korea, as described in an overview of the joint exercises reported by the Associated Press and published in the Washington Post. “The spring maneuvers — actually two overlapping exercises called Key Resolve and Foal Eagle — include live-fire drills with tanks, aircraft and warships. About 10,000 American and 200,000 Korean troops usually take part. The drills typically begin in March but were delayed until April this year to encourage North Korean participation in the South Korean Winter Olympics,” the report noted. North Korea has always said the drills are provocative, the U.S. that they are only defensive.
In my opinion the exercises are both. They are defensive in that they help maintain readiness between the U.S. and South Korea in event of an outbreak of hostilities. But “live-fire drills with tanks, aircraft and warships” involving 210,000 troops is clearly provocative, as well. What could be more threatening than such an overwhelming display of military might by a neighboring country?
Trump said “Holding back the ‘war games’ during the negotiations was my request because they are VERY EXPENSIVE and set a bad light during a good faith negotiation.”
Although I don’t think “very expensive” should carry much weight in the world of national security strategies along a very tense border with a nuclear-armed adversary, I daresay it will carry weight here on the home front and is certainly true.
Trump warned that he could re-instate the drills “immediately” if talks break down, but added that he hoped that would not happen.
Pulling back the stick, dangling the carrot — not an uncommon strategy.
Critics also suggested too much was given for too little, that a brutal leader was legitimized and praised. But you can’t negotiate without taking a seat at the table, and Trump is well versed in the power of flattery, pomp and ceremony.
I am among those who find the negotiations the “promising, symbolic start of a long process.”
They are certainly prefered to the war of insults started last September, when the president calling Jong-un “rocket man,” and Kim responding with a rarely-used term for person in “a state or period of senile decay marked by decline of mental poise and alertness,” according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary. The term was translated by North Korea’s official state press agency as “dotard,” according to france24.com.
The verbal sparring that followed was pretty impressive — I would have tried memorizing the insults when I was a middle school student — and the launch of a new type of missile by North Korea something you don’t usually see on the playground. By 2018, they were arguing over nuclear buttons. Kim warned “the U.S. should know that the button for nuclear weapons is on my desk. This is not blackmail but reality.” Trump responded by boasting that his button was “much bigger and more powerful.”
The two men clearly understand each other. If that can lead to peace, it’s worth a shot.
— Mark Gibson
Obama gave away the farm when it came to the Iran deal and liberals remained largely silent because he was their guy. Trump holds historic face-to-face negotiations with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, challenging him to tear down his nuclear weapon program, and the howls from the left are deafening.
Trump is closer than any president has been in six decades to reaching an end to the global threat posed by North Korea, yet Democrats and their propaganda machine, the left media, can do nothing but look for something, anything, to criticize.
When Trump tweeted that North Korea is no longer a nuclear threat, liberals went — yes — nuclear. All rational people understood what the president was saying; he didn’t mean it literally, he was allowing Kim Jong-un to feel like a hero for making concessions that no prior administration could get.
Trump is clearly a national security hawk. He has approached the mess of foreign policy by appeasement that was Obama’s legacy with firm resolve and the long view in mind. Do you think for one moment that Trump will not insist on verification and not follow through with immediate and severe penalties if Jong-un once again becomes deceitful?
Trump is advised by brilliant foreign policy analysts who are devoted to America’s national security. And he is unabashedly patriotic, which is what his supporters love about him.
Top Democrats couldn’t wait to criticize Trump for accomplishing what their party could not accomplish: A face-to-face meeting with a foe that resulted in good will and the basic outline of an agreement that could make Asia and the U.S. safer.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi trashed the summit and then suggested that Trump was “hindering a lasting, stable pathway to peace.” Does she mean the stable path to peace promised by Obama that resulted in North Korea developing ballistic missiles and threatening to annihilate the U.S.?
Remember when Obama promised in 2008 to meet with Iran and North Korea “without preconditions?”He never got to North Korea and his debacle of a deal with Iran, which has now been shown to have been based on lies, resulted in the U.S. releasing $150 billion for the illusion of a denuclearization agreement.
Fake news fueled the fires of opposition about Trump’s summit. NBC reported that the historic meeting was a failure because the president did not engage Jong-un on the issue of human rights.
Trump rightly pointed out that the purpose of the meeting was to see if North Korea was serious about eliminating its nuclear weapons program.
After being accused by a reporter of selling out 100,000 political prisoners, Trump said now that the two nations are talking, there will be an opportuity to address that issue.
Trump is making headway on every front in his quest to restore America as a sovereign and great nation. He is exhibiting strategic genius when it comes to positioning the U.S. against its opponents.
The left hates it. But that means less and less as they reveal their willingness to oppose anything good for America if it comes from Republicans.
Remember Democrats’ opposition to tax code reform that benefitted working-class families? I could go on and on but you all know what’s happening out there.
I thank God every day that Donald Trump is president. He is cleaning house of trade deals and regulatory burdens that stall our economy.
Every step he has taken in foreign policy leads to concessions that serve American interests, despite the vitriol from the left.
This country was in a bad place due to Obama’s policy malfeasance that emboldened our enemies, particularly in the Middle East.
In the face of hateful and unrelenting opposition, Trump has done more to move the political ball in the right direction than any president in history, with the exception of Ronald Reagan, this nation’s last great statesman.
— RaeLynn Ricarte
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