With all that’s going on in the world, it is understandable that most of us missed the second anniversary of Trump’s photo-op with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un on the demilitarized border between North and South Korea. But nothing demonstrates Trump’s utter failure as a president more than his posturing on that issue.
It all started with a lot of chest-thumping about six months after the inauguration. Trump told reporters that “North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.” That was followed by a lot of name-calling and insults, ending in a verbal competition over who had the biggest nuclear button.
Kim Jong Un then invited Trump to a meeting in Singapore, which took place in mid-June 2018. All of a sudden the blustering stopped, with Trump saying that the North Korean dictator was “very smart” with a “great personality.” He went on to tell Greta van Susteren that Kim “loves his people.” The meeting ended with the two leaders signing an agreement, which was nothing more substantial than a promise to negotiate. The whole event was described as a propaganda victory for Kim Jong Un. Continue reading.
President Trump’s decision to engage directly with Kim Jong Un was premised on the bet that three decades of U.S. policy failures to contain North Korea’s nuclear program could be reversed by skipping over lower-level diplomatic talks and starting at the top of its authoritarian regime.