Some of the stupid has been pointed out in this thread and others, so would you mind pointing out the part of the agreement that might be considered “brilliant”? This “standing things on their head” nonsense that is being pushed heavily is absolute nonsense, btw. It makes it sound like it might be a planned strategy, when in truth it is just the same old Trump routine of making a name for himself regardless of cost to the rest of the world.
If ever there was going to be progress it was going to take the US screwing over South Korea.
He’s probably tallying up how big an invoice he’ll present to Moon Jae-in for the reunification costs and a little commission on the side for the broker.
If it comes up roses then lets all form a circle and sing Kumbaya. Reluctantly I’d concede that the ends justifies the means.
Conversely, if he’s prepared to launch a trade war with Canada over milk, heaven help us all if he thinks Kim has welshed on his deal.
Just to be clear, I’m as skeptical as most people that this works out as Trump has planned. But I will say that there’s a chance of an agreement if they can resolve the issue of sanctions. If there’s a mutually satisfactory resolution on how sanctions on North Korea end within the next 6 months, then the chances of success for Trump go way up. But Trump is probably going to have to do more than just agree to stop war games with South Korea to get Kim to seriously consider disarming himself. Kim wants sanctions to stop now before he agrees to anything, and whatever he agrees to will most likely be more along the lines of freezing his program rather than eliminating it.
By standing things on their head, I mean that the world is now dealing with an isolationist president who no longer believes that the U.S. has any global commitments. Any analysis has to take this into consideration. Throwing South Korea under the bus seems like a violation of long-standing protocol and an a gaffe, but it’s not a bug of this administration; it’s a feature, and it could be a harbinger of American foreign policy in the next 2-8 years, if not longer.
Excellent summary. To put it in numerical terms, I’d score it +2 for NK, -1 for SK, and 0 for the USA: “Kim gets the legitimization and the seat at the table” (+1 for NK), " South Korea gets the rug pulled out from under them" (Trump just handed Kim a cessation of US-South Korea joint military exercises for the time being, +1 for NK, -1 for SK), and nothing for us.
The weird thing is, to the extent that Trump’s succeeded in business, it’s been by getting the better of deals (or simply screwing people over) by either dealing with people who needed him a lot more than he needed them, or making the people on the other side of the deal believe that was the case.
So here’s the first time Trump’s dealing with a country that really DOES need the U.S. a lot more than the U.S. needs it, and damned if he doesn’t screw the whole thing up.
Of course, that’s probably looking at it from the wrong perspective. When Trump negotiates, it’s not about the U.S.A., it’s about Trump. And he needed something badly that he could call a win, especially after the G6+1. Kim didn’t. So of course he got screwed.
A couple of WTF moments from Trumps press conference:
He was babbling about how he was reading and “scientifically, denuclearization takes a very very long time and that is scientific fact”. Or something like that. It almost sounds to me like he was talking in some very confused way about the half-life of radioactive materials. Which has absolutely nothing to do with the issues at hand. Can he even be this this stupid? Cause I really don’t know what else he could be talking about. Was it just a stealth brag about him being able to read?
He brought up Otto Warmbier and held up the summit as some sort of proof that Otto didn’t die in vain. I don’t get the connection. Did Trump view the battered corpse of Kim”s most newsworthy victim and think…what a strong leader, I want to sit down and chat with the guy did this? Should Trudeau beat some innocent to death in order to earn Trump’s respect? Does Trump even know what “die in vain” even means? And he talked a bunch about what great friends he was with Warmbier’s parents. Which leads me to wonder what they think about this.
This is what happens when I don’t turn off the TV right away when he starts blathering. Now my head hurts,
Yes. This question with respect to Trump and his supporters is always yes.
Watching Trump conduct diplomacy is like watching those old SNL routines where they’d let Toonces the cat drive the car.
The difference is that Toonces wasn’t real, there was no driving cat, it was all just a SNL comedy sketch.
Thank you, GOP, for refusing to take the keys away from Trump. :mad:
So basically, if he manages to negotiate a deal that is considerably less rigorous than the one he ripped up with Iran because he thought it wasn’t strong enough, he’ll consider it a major victory. Yes, that makes sense, or at least as much sense as anything this administration says or does does.
In Trump’s defense, he is an inveterate liar who frequently reneges on promises, so the war games thing isn’t a lock.
I couldn’t completely dismiss that South Korea may have already primed Trump to make that offer. I mean, who knows what Trump and Moon have discussed privately?
Talking is great, I’m not going to badmouth the talks at all… but so far the Iran deal is a much better one than what we have seen so far. I think this summit was probably conceived of being 90% optics, 10% substance.
First, to reiterate a couple of my past predictions in this thread which I think weren’t too far from what we’re seeing now, and will probably get even closer to what we’ll ultimately see:
Canceling the exercises (without even mentioning it to SK) is just the first step. KJU and Trump have now gotten together and basically agreed on the approach that it will be SK giving all the concessions that Trump and Kim agree to.
It makes me think that the whole G6(+1) thing could have been an intentional display for SK to realize that if Trump can treat the US’s closest allies and neighbor so poorly, they had better not take anything for granted and would be best served by taking whatever deal Trump deigned to saddle them with.
Meanwhile, even in the improbable event that NK were to completely denuclearize, that STILL DOES NOT make SK a whole lot safer from NK’s vast conventional weapons. Stop doing those exercises together, stop selling certain hardware platforms, start pulling troops away from the DMZ, and slowly but surely and continuously, NK can squeeze SK for more and more concessions.
Another reason for the intelligence community to love Trump.
From full transcript of press conference.
Not true. A few excerpts from this web slite:
Basically, promising to move towards peace & disarmament is routine practice for North Korea.
Japan and South Korea need to seriously rethink the whole US Alliance now. Hope Japan ditches Article 9 and goes full military.
Yeah, North Korea’s not gonna buy that shit after he pulled out of the JCPOA.
You don’t really mean this do you?
Didn’t Trump make some comment a while back about how he was elected to put America first, and other countries elected leaders to put their own country first? It seems like Velocity is just suggesting that Japan would be acting consistent with the Trump Doctrine of “everyone for themselves, fuck everyone else” if they rebuilt their military.
Of course, people may disagree with the Trump Doctrine of everyone should just be self-absorbed assholes and just give everyone else the finger as a matter of policy.
Exactly. At this point, I don’t trust Trump and his enablers to do the right thing by Japan and SK, and it’s not much skin (directly) off my nose. It would be absolute madness if they trust him more with their own security.
And remember, Japan was Trump’s original boogieman before China emerged. The way that guy carries a grudge, it wouldn’t surprise me if he delights in ultimately giving them the shaft.
I dunno, they might remember that “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” stuff.
About as likely as the Fourth Reich rising up, yet the current complaint is that Germany doesn’t spend enough on it’s military.