The relationship between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has got to rank among the most dysfunctional relationships in history.
Recall the big crisis with North Korea that Trump ignited soon after coming into office, a crisis that threw his supporters, his opponents, and the mainstream press into a classic tizzy. Trump’s thesis was that North Korea posed a grave threat to U.S. “national security” (whatever that term means) simply by virtue of North Korea’s possession of nuclear weapons. Trump demanded that Kim eliminate his nukes or else face the fire of a U.S. carpet-bombing nuclear attack on his country, one that would make the U.S. nuclear attacks on Japan look like child’s play.
Kim knew, however, that if he dismantled his nuclear weapons, North Korea would be subject to a U.S. regime-change operation, similar to the ones that the Pentagon and the CIA have initiated against Iraq, Cuba, Libya, Iran, Guatemala, Afghanistan, and many other countries. Kim understood that his nuclear weapons were the only chance he had to deter a U.S. regime-change operation against his country.
So, the world watched in horror as the two nations came to the brink of war. Fortunately, Trump backed down, which defused the crisis, causing him to wonder whether he would win the Nobel Peace Prize for ratcheting down the crisis that he himself ignited.
Kim and Trump decided to meet at a high-level summit in an attempt to resolve their differences. Trump demanded a dismantling of North Korea’s nukes. Kim claimed that he was amenable to that but only if the U.S. government were to lift its brutal economic sanctions against North Korea and only if North Korea could be assured that it wouldn’t be targeted for a U.S. regime-change operation after its nukes were destroyed.
Significantly, Trump claims that he fell in love with Kim at that summit meeting. Judging from Trump’s profuse praise of Kim, there is no reason to doubt his sincerity regarding his affection for this communist dictator. Trump even set aside any criticism of Kim for supposedly causing the death of young American citizen Otto Warmbier, who had been returned by North Korea in a vegetative state after having been incarcerated for stealing a communist propaganda poster. Also forgotten were the snubs that Vice President Pence delivered to North Korean officials at the Winter Olympics in South Korea. Trump was even caught on camera saluting a North Korean communist general.
For this part, Kim was just as effusive as Trump regarding his new relationship with a U.S. president. Since that summit, he has showered Trump with accolades and praise. And he continues to assure Trump that he does, in fact, intend to “denuclearize” just as soon as the sanctions are lifted and he’s assured that North Korea will not be targeted by the Pentagon and the CIA for regime change.
A second summit, held in Vietnam, which, like North Korea, is headed by a communist regime, resulted in no progress toward denuclearization and was even cut short by Trump. Just a few days ago, the two leaders met again at the Korean DMZ in the hopes of reopening talks to resolve the differences. The media is reporting that Trump is now willing to accept North Korea’s possession of nuclear weapons, something that Trump claimed not too long ago constituted a grave threat to U.S. “national security.” Remember: When he ignited the initial crisis, Trump was threatening to carpet-bomb North Korea with nuclear bombs if it refused to denuclearize.
There is a fundamental problem, however, with the intimate relationship between Trump and Kim: trust. In order for two people who have fallen in love with each other to establish a mutual and long-lasting relationship, they have to trust each other. With no trust, the relationship is doomed.
A lack of trust between Kim and Trump goes to the heart of why their relationship is so dysfunctional. Consider the fact that while Trump has fallen in love with Kim and has made him his new BFF, he continues to enforce one of the most brutal systems of economic sanctions in history against North Korea, with the aim of killing as many North Koreans as possible. After all, Trump knows that North Korea is an extremely poor society, one in which millions of North Koreans have starved to death over the decades under socialist rule. Trump’s sanctions are designed to target even more North Koreans with death in the hope that that will cause Kim to denuclearize.
There is only one word to describe a relationship in which one ruler is embracing another ruler while, at the same time, trying to force him into submitting to demands by killing his citizenry. That word is “dysfunctional.”
Moreover, Trump is using U.S. sanctions to prevent South Korea and North Korea from establishing closer relations. If that’s not dysfunctional, I don’t know what is. Wouldn’t closer relations between North and South be a good thing?
At the same time, however, Trump assures Kim that Trump can, in fact, be trusted. The U.S. government has no interest in regime-change for North Korea, Trump soothingly assures Kim. In fact, as soon as North Korea denuclearizes, Trump assures Kim, the U.S. government will help develop North Korea beaches into a massive condo project, one that will make North Korea communists rich.
Yet, at the same time Trump and his National Security Advisor, John Bolton, are doing everything they can to incite a war with Iran, after U.S. officials were successful in getting Iran to end its nuclear-weapons program. Moreover, both Trump and Bolton have targeted Venezuela with a regime-change operation, knowing that it lacks the capacity to defend itself with nuclear weapons.
How is Kim supposed to trust Trump and Bolton when he sees what Trump and Bolton are doing to Iran and Venezuela? How can Kim be certain that Trump and Bolton will not do the same thing to North Korea on the day that Kim destroys his last nuclear bomb? He can’t. Like I say, a very dysfunctional relationship.
The solution to all this mayhem? Forget trying to establish an intimate relationship with a communist dictator. Simply bring all U.S. troops home from Korea and discharge them. U.S. troops should never have been sent into Korea in the first place. They have no business there today. Leave Korea to the Koreans.
More fundamentally, bring an end to the U.S. government’s decades-long foreign policy of interventionism. Our nation was founded on non-interventionism in the affairs of other nations. It’s time to restore that founding principle. Bring all the troops home from everywhere. Stop the meddling in the affairs of other nations. Liberate the American people to travel anywhere in the world and trade with whomever they want, including North Korea. End America’s role as the international policeman and regime-changer. That’s a key to restoring liberty, peace, prosperity, and harmony with the people of the world.