AP fact check: Donald Trump on North Korea, wages, climate; dem misfires
Straining for deals on trade and nukes in Asia, President Donald Trump hailed a meeting with North Korea’s leader that he falsely claimed President Barack Obama coveted, asserted a U.S. auto renaissance that isn’t and wrongly stated air in the U.S. is the cleanest ever as he dismissed climate change. He also ignored the reality in suggesting that nobody had implicated Saudi’s crown prince in the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. Trump’s own intelligence agencies and a United Nations investigator, in fact, have pointed a finger at the prince. The president’s misstatements over the weekend capped several days of extraordinary claims, including a false one accusing special counsel Robert Mueller of a crime and misrepresenting trade in multiple dimensions. Democratic presidential candidates, meantime, stepped forward for their first debates and tripped at times on issues dear to them: climate change, health care and immigration among them. A look at the misstatements: AUTOMAKERS TRUMP: “Many, many companies — including South Korea — but many companies are coming into the United States. … Car companies, in particular. They’re going to Michigan. They’re going to Ohio and North Carolina and Pennsylvania, Florida. … We hadn’t had a plant built in years — in decades, actually. And now we have many plants being built all throughout the United States — cars.” — remarks Sunday to Korean business leaders in Seoul. THE FACTS: Car companies are not pouring into the U.S. as Trump suggests, nor does he deserve all the credit for those that have moved here. He’s also wrong in saying that auto plants haven’t been built in decades. A number of automakers — Toyota, BMW, Honda, Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen among them — opened plants in recent decades, mostly in the South. Government statistics show that jobs in auto and parts manufacturing grew at a slower rate in the two-plus years since Trump took office than in the two prior years. Between January of 2017, when Trump was inaugurated, and May of this year, the latest figures available, U.S. auto and parts makers added 44,000 jobs, or a 4.6 percent increase, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.But in the two years before Trump took office, the industry added 63,600 manufacturing jobs, a 7.1 percent increase. The only automaker announcing plans to reopen a plant in Michigan is Fiat Chrysler, which is restarting an old engine plant to build three-row SUVs. It’s been planning to do so since before Trump was elected. GM is even closing two Detroit-area factories: one that builds cars and another that builds transmissions. Toyota is building a new factory in Alabama with Mazda, and Volvo opened a plant in South Carolina last year, but in each case, that was in the works before Trump took office. Automakers have made announcements about new models being built in Michigan, but no other factories have been reopened. Ford stopped building the Focus compact car in the Detroit suburb of Wayne last year, but it’s being replaced by the manufacture of a small pickup and a new SUV. That announcement was made in December 2016, before Trump took office.GM, meantime, is closing factories in Ohio and Maryland. Trump can plausibly claim that his policies have encouraged some activity in the domestic auto industry. Corporate tax cuts freed more money for investment, and potential tariff increases on imported vehicles are an incentive to build in the U.S. But when expansion does happen, it’s not all because of him. Fiat Chrysler has been planning the SUVs for several years and has been looking at expansion in the Detroit area, where it has unused building space and an abundant, trainable automotive labor force. Normally it takes at least three years for an automaker to plan a new vehicle. NORTH KOREA TRUMP: “President Obama wanted to meet, and Chairman Kim would not meet him. The Obama administration was begging for a meeting. They were begging for meetings constantly. And Chairman Kim would not meet with him.” — joint news conference Sunday with South Korea’s president in Seoul. THE FACTS: That’s not the case. While Obama came into his presidency saying he’d be willing to meet with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and other U.S. adversaries “without preconditions,” he never publicly sought a meeting with Kim. Obama eventually met Cuba’s President Raul Castro and spoke to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani by phone but took a different stance with Kim in 2009 as North Korea was escalating missile and nuclear tests. “This is the same kind of pattern that we saw his father engage in, and his grandfather before that,” Obama said in 2013. “Since I came into office, the one thing I was clear about was, we’re not going to reward this kind of provocative behavior. You don’t get to bang your — your spoon on the table and somehow you get your way.” Ben Rhodes, who was on Obama’s national security team for both terms, tweeted: ?”Obama never sought a meeting with Kim Jong Un.” Trump has portrayed his diplomacy with Kim as happening due to a special personal chemistry and friendship, saying he’s in “no rush” to get Kim to commit fully to denuclearization. INCOME INEQUALITY TRUMP: “Blue-collar workers are doing fantastic. They’re the biggest beneficiary of the tax cuts, the blue collar.” — news conference Saturday at G-20 summit in Japan. THE FACTS: Wrong. While most middle-income taxpayers did see a tax cut this year, Trump’s tax cut clearly skewed to the wealthy rather than lower-income groups such as manufacturing workers, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. It found that taxpayers making $308,000 to $733,000 stood to benefit the most. The Joint Committee on Taxation separately found the tax cuts were particularly helpful to businesses and people making more than $100,000 annually. LARRY KUDLOW, White House economic adviser: “The United States economy is booming. It’s running at roughly 3 percent average since President Trump took office two and a half years ago. On this business about bad distribution, the blue-collar
No deal: Donald Trump, Kim Jong Un summit collapses over sanctions impasse
Talks between President Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un collapsed Thursday after the two sides failed to bridge a standoff over U.S. sanctions, a dispiriting end to high-stakes meetings meant to disarm a global nuclear threat. Trump blamed the breakdown on North Korea’s insistence that all the punishing sanctions the U.S. has imposed on Pyongyang be lifted without the North committing to eliminate its nuclear arsenal. “Sometimes you have to walk,” Trump explained at a closing news conference after the summit was abruptly cut short. He said there had been a proposed agreement that was “ready to be signed.” “I’d much rather do it right than do it fast,” Trump said. “We’re in position to do something very special.” Mere hours after both nations had seemed hopeful of a deal, the two leaders’ motorcades roared away from the downtown Hanoi summit site within minutes of each other, their lunch canceled and a signing ceremony scuttled. The president’s closing news conference was hurriedly moved up, and he departed for Washington more than two hours ahead of schedule. The disintegration of talks came after Trump and Kim had appeared to be ready to inch toward normalizing relations between their still technically warring nations and as the American leader dampened expectations that their negotiations would yield an agreement by North Korea to take concrete steps toward ending a nuclear program that Pyongyang likely sees as its strongest security guarantee. In something of a role reversal, Trump had deliberately ratcheted down some of the pressure on North Korea, abandoning his fiery rhetoric and declaring that he wanted the “right deal” over a rushed agreement. For his part, Kim, when asked whether he was ready to denuclearize, had said, “If I’m not willing to do that I won’t be here right now.” The breakdown denied Trump a much-needed triumph amid growing domestic turmoil back home, including congressional testimony this week by his former personal lawyer Michael Cohen, who called Trump a “racist” and “con man” and claimed prior knowledge that WikiLeaks would release emails that would damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016. North Korea’s state media made no immediate comment on the diplomatic impasse, and Kim remained in his locked-down hotel after leaving the summit venue. The North Korean leader was scheduled to meet with top Vietnamese leaders on Friday and leave Saturday on his armored train for the long return trip, through China, to North Korea. Trump insisted his relations with Kim remained warm, but he did not commit to having a third summit with the North Korean leader, saying a possible next meeting “may not be for a long time.” Though both he and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said significant progress had been made in Hanoi, the two sides appeared to be galaxies apart on an agreement that would live up to U.S. stated goals. “Basically, they wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety, and we couldn’t do that,” Trump told reporters. Kim, he explained, appeared willing to close his country’s main nuclear facility, the Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center, if the sanctions were lifted. But that would leave him with missiles, warheads and weapon systems, Pompeo said. There are also suspected hidden nuclear fuel production sites around the country. “We couldn’t quite get there today,” Pompeo said, minimizing what seemed to be a chasm between the two sides. Longstanding U.S. policy has insisted that U.S. sanctions on North Korea would not be lifted until that country committed to, if not concluded, complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization. Trump declined to restate that goal Thursday, insisting he wanted flexibility in talks with Kim. “I don’t want to put myself in that position from the standpoint of negotiation,” he said. White House aides stressed that Trump stood strong, and some observers evoked the 1987 Reykjavík summit between Ronald Reagan and the Soviet Union’s Mikhail Gorbachev, a meeting over nuclear weapons that ended without a deal but laid the groundwork for a future agreement. The failure in Hanoi laid bare a risk in Trump’s unpredictable negotiating style: Preferring one-on-one meetings with his foreign counterparts, his administration often eschews the staff-level work done in advance to assure a deal and envisions summits more as messaging opportunities than venues for hardline negotiation. There was disappointment and alarm in South Korea, whose liberal leader has been a leading orchestrator of the nuclear diplomacy and who needs a breakthrough to restart lucrative engagement projects with the impoverished North. Yonhap news agency said that the clock on the Korean Peninsula’s security situation has “turned back to zero” and diplomacy is now “at a crossroads.” The collapse was a dramatic turnaround from the optimism that surrounded the talks after the leaders’ dinner Wednesday and that had prompted the White House to list a signing ceremony on Trump’s official schedule for Thursday. The two leaders had seemed to find a point of agreement when Kim, who fielded questions from American journalists for the first time, was asked if the U.S. may open a liaison office in North Korea. Trump declared it “not a bad idea,” and Kim called it “welcomable.” Such an office would mark the first U.S. presence in North Korea and a significant grant to a country that has long been deliberately starved of international recognition. But questions persisted throughout the summit, including whether Kim was willing to make valuable concessions, what Trump would demand in the face of rising domestic turmoil and whether the meeting could yield far more concrete results than the leaders’ first summit, a meeting in Singapore less than a year ago that was long on dramatic imagery but short on tangible results. There had long been skepticism that Kim would be willing to give away the weapons his nation had spent decades developing and Pyongyang felt ensured its survival. But even after the summit ended, Trump praised Kim’s commitment to continue a moratorium on missile testing. Trump also said he believed the autocrat’s claim that he had nothing to do with the
Donald Trump, Kim Jong Un share smiles, dinner before nuke talks
U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un projected optimism Wednesday as they opened high-stakes talks about curbing Pyongyang’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, a problem that has bedeviled generations of leaders. The second summit between Trump and Kim came against the backdrop of the American president’s domestic troubles. As the leaders dined on steak and chocolate cake, Trump’s former personal attorney was readying explosive congressional testimony claiming the president is a “conman” who lied abut his business interests with Russia. The turmoil in Washington has escalated concerns that Trump, eager for an agreement, would give Kim too much and get too little in return. The leaders’ first meeting in June was heavy with historic pageantry but light on any enforceable agreements for North Korea to give up its nuclear arsenal. Still, both offered optimistic words before dinner. “A lot of things are going to be solved I hope,” Trump said as dinner began. “I think it will lead to a wonderful, really a wonderful situation long-term.” Kim said his country had long been “misunderstood” and viewed with “distrust.” “There have been efforts, whether out of hostility or not, to block the path that we intend to take,” he said. “But we have overcome all these and walked toward each other again and we’ve now reached Hanoi after 261 days” since their first meeting in Singapore. “We have met again here and I am confident that we can achieve great results that everyone welcomes,” he added. The leaders’ formal talks continue Thursday. Possible outcomes could include a peace declaration for the Korean War that the North could use to eventually push for the reduction of U.S. troops in South Korea, or sanctions relief that could allow Pyongyang to pursue lucrative economic projects with the South. Skeptics say such agreements would leave in place a significant portion of North Korea’s nuclear-tipped missiles while robbing the United States of its negotiating leverage going forward. Asked if this summit would yield a political declaration to end the Korean War, Trump told reporters: “We’ll see.” Trump’s schedule for Thursday promised a “joint agreement signing ceremony” after their meetings conclude. The two leaders were joined for dinner by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, Kim Yong Chol, a former military spy chief and Kim’s point man in negotiations, and North Korean Foreign Affairs Minister Ri Yong Ho. Interpreters for each side also attended. Trump did not answer a question from a reporter about his former attorney Michael Cohen‘s congressional testimony. Shortly after, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders excluded some U.S. reporters, including the reporter from The Associated Press who asked the president about Cohen, from covering Trump and Kim’s dinner. “Due to the sensitive nature of the meetings we have limited the pool for the dinner to a smaller group,” she said in a statement. Still, Trump was unable to ignore the drama playing out thousands of miles away, tweeting that Cohen “did bad things unrelated to Trump” and “is lying in order to reduce his prison time.” Cohen has been sentenced to three years in prison for lying to Congress. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a close White House ally, said the Cohen hearing was evidence that “Democrats’ hatred of Trump is undercutting an important foreign policy effort and is way out of line.” Anticipation for what could be accomplished at the summit ran high in Hanoi, and there were cheers and gasps as Trump’s motorcade barreled through this bustling city. Crowds three or four deep lined the streets and jockeyed to capture his procession with their mobile phones. The carnival-like atmosphere in the Vietnamese capital, with street artists painting likenesses of the leaders and vendors hawking T-shirts showing Kim waving and Trump giving a thumbs-up, contrasted with the serious items on their agenda: North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and peace on the Korean Peninsula. Trump has been trying to convince Kim that his nation could thrive economically like the host country, Vietnam, if he would end his nuclear weapons program. “I think that your country has tremendous economic potential — unbelievable, unlimited,” Trump said. “I think that you will have a tremendous future with your country — a great leader — and I look forward to watching it happen and helping it to happen.” The summit venue, the colonial and neoclassical Sofitel Legend Metropole in the old part of Hanoi, came with its own dose of history: Trump was trying to talk Kim into giving up his nuclear arsenal at a hotel with a bomb shelter that protected the likes of actress Jane Fonda and singer Joan Baez from American air raids during the Vietnam War. After their first summit, where Trump and Kim signed a joint statement agreeing to work toward a denuclearized Korean Peninsula, the president prematurely declared victory, tweeting that “There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea.” The facts did not support that claim. North Korea has spent decades, at great economic sacrifice, building its nuclear program, and there are doubts that it will give away that program without getting something substantial from the U.S. The Korean conflict ended in 1953 with an armistice, essentially a cease-fire signed by North Korea, China and the 17-nation, U.S.-led United Nations Command. A peace declaration would amount to a political statement, ostensibly teeing up talks for a formal peace treaty that would involve other nations. North and South Korea also want U.S. sanctions dialed back so they can resurrect two major symbols of rapprochement that provided $150 million a year to the impoverished North by some estimates: a jointly run factory park in the North Korean border city of Kaesong and South Korean tours to the North’s scenic Diamond Mountain resort. AP journalists Hau Dinh and Hyung-jin Kim in Hanoi and Kim Tong-hyung in Seoul, South Korea, contributed to this report. Republished with permission from the Associated Press.
Expectations low as Donald Trump looks for win in NKorea summit
President Donald Trump will head into his second meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un having reframed what would make a successful summit, lowering expectations for Pyongyang’s denuclearization while eager to declare a flashy victory to offset the political turmoil he faces at home. Trump was the driving force behind this week’s Vietnam summit, aiming to recreate the global spectacle of his first meeting with Kim, although that initial summit yielded few concrete results and the months that followed have produced little optimism about what will be achieved in the sequel. He once warned that North Korea’s arsenal posed such a threat to humanity that he may have no choice but to rain “fire and fury” on the rogue nation, yet on Sunday declared that he was in no hurry for Pyongyang to prove it was abandoning its weapons. “I’m not in a rush. I don’t want to rush anybody, I just don’t want testing. As long as there’s no testing, we’re happy,” Trump told a gathering of governors at the White House. Hours earlier, he ended a tweet about the summit by posing the key question that looms over their meeting in Vietnam: “Denuclearization?” He did not provide an answer. Though worries abound across world capitals about what Trump might be willing to give up in the name of a win, the president was ready to write himself into the history books before he and Kim even shake hands in Hanoi. “If I were not elected president, you would have been in a war with North Korea,” Trump said last week. “We now have a situation where the relationships are good — where there has been no nuclear testing, no missiles, no rockets.” Whatever the North Koreans have done so far, the survival of the Kim regime is always the primary concern. Kim inherited a nascent, incomplete nuclear program from his father, and after years of accelerated effort and fighting through crippling sanctions, he built an arsenal that demonstrates the potential capability to deliver a thermonuclear weapon to the mainland United States. That is the fundamental reason Washington now sits at the negotiating table. Kim, his world standing elevated after receiving an audience with a U.S. president, has yet to show a convincing sign that he is willing to deal away an arsenal that might provide a stronger guarantee of survival than whatever security assurance the United States could provide. The North Koreans have largely eschewed staff-level talks, pushing for discussions between Trump and Kim. Trump will arrive in Hanoi on Tuesday on Air Force One while his counterpart, lacking a modern aircraft fleet, travels via armored train. Though details of the summit remain closely held, the two leaders are expected to meet at some point one-on-one, joined only by translators. The easing of tension between the two nations, Trump and his allies believe, stems from the U.S. president’s own unorthodox and unpredictable style of diplomacy. Often prizing personal rapport over long-held strategic interests, Trump has pointed to his budding relationship with the young and reclusive leader, frequently showing visitors to the Oval Office his flattering letters from Kim. Trump, who has long declared that North Korea represented the gravest foreign threat of his presidency, told reporters recently that his efforts to defang Pyongyang had moved Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to nominate him for a Nobel Peace Prize, something Abe would not confirm or deny. And, always with an eye on his media coverage, Trump had delighted in the round-the-clock phenomenon created by the first Kim summit, held last June in Singapore. He urged reluctant aides as early as last fall to begin preparations for a second meeting. The images of the first face-to-face meeting between a U.S. president and his North Korean counterpart resonated across the globe. Four main goals emerged: establishing new relations between the nations, building a new peace on the Korean Peninsula, completing denuclearization of the peninsula and recovering U.S. POW/MIA remains from the Korean War. While some remains have been returned to the United States, little has been achieved on the other points. Korean and American negotiators have not settled on either the parameters of denuclearization or the timetable for the removal of both Korean weapons and American sanctions. “The key lessons of Singapore are that President Trump sees tremendous value in the imagery of diplomacy and wants to be seen as a bold leader, even if the substance of the diplomacy is far behind the pageantry,” said Abraham Denmark, director of the Asia Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. U.S. intelligence officials testified before Congress last month that it remains unlikely Kim would fully dismantle his arsenal. And many voices in the Trump administration, including national security adviser John Bolton, have expressed skepticism that North Korea would ever live up to a deal. Mark Chinoy, senior fellow at U.S.-China Institute at the University of Southern California, made clear that after generations of hostility, the convivial atmosphere of Singapore “can’t be discounted.” But Chinoy noted that Trump had agreed to North Korean’s “formulation of ‘denuclearization of the Korean peninsula,’ which Pyongyang has long made clear meant an end to the US security alliance with South Korea and an end to the US nuclear umbrella intended to defend South Korea and Japan.” After the last summit, Trump unilaterally suspended some military drills with South Korea, alarming some in Seoul and at the Pentagon. But he was insistent this week that he would not drawdown U.S. troops from South Korea. And American officials, even as they hint at a relaxed timetable for Pyongyang to account for its full arsenal, have continued to publicly insist they would not ease punishing sanctions on North Korea until denuclearization is complete. A year ago, North Korea suspended its nuclear and long-range missile tests and said it dismantled its nuclear testing ground but those measures were not perceived as meaningful reductions. Experts believe Kim, who is enjoying warmer relations with South Korea and the easing of
Possible peace declaration looms large over Donald Trump-Kim Jong Un summit
With their second summit fast approaching, speculation is growing that U.S. President Donald Trump may try to persuade North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to commit to denuclearization by giving him something he wants more than almost anything else: an announcement of peace and an end to the Korean War. Such an announcement could make history. It would be right in line with Trump’s opposition to “forever wars.” And, coming more than six decades after the fighting essentially ended, it just seems like common sense. But, if not done carefully, it could open up a whole new set of problems for Washington. Here’s why switching the focus of the ongoing talks between Pyongyang and Washington from denuclearization to peace would be a risky move — and why it might be exactly what Kim wants when the two leaders meet in Hanoi on Feb. 27-28. ___ THE STANDOFF The Korean Peninsula was divided at the 38th parallel after World War II, with the U.S. claiming a zone of influence in the south and the Soviet Union in the north. Within five years, the two Koreas were at war. Though the shooting stopped in 1953, the conflict ended with an armistice, essentially a cease-fire signed by North Korea, China and the 17-nation, U.S.-led United Nations Command that was supposed to be replaced by a formal peace treaty. But both sides instead settled ever deeper into Cold War hostilities marked by occasional outbreaks of violence. The conflict in Korea is technically America’s longest war. North Korea, which saw all of its major cities and most of its infrastructure destroyed by U.S. bombers during the war, blames what it sees as Washington’s unrelenting hostility over the past 70 years as ample justification for its nuclear weapons and long-range missiles. It claims they are purely for self-defense. The U.S., on the other hand, maintains a heavy military presence in South Korea to counter what it says is the North’s intention to invade and assimilate the South. It has also implemented a long-standing policy of ostracizing the North and backing economic sanctions. Trump escalated the effort to squeeze the North with a “maximum pressure” strategy that remains in force. A combination of that strategy and the North’s repeated tests of missiles believed capable of delivering its nuclear weapons to the U.S. mainland are what brought the two countries to the negotiating table. ___ WHY KIM WANTS A TREATY Getting a formal peace treaty has been high on the wish list of every North Korean leader, starting with Kim Jong Un’s grandfather, Kim Il Sung. A peace treaty would bring international recognition, probably at least some easing of trade sanctions, and a likely reduction in the number of U.S. troops south of the Demilitarized Zone. If done right, it would be a huge boost to Kim’s reputation at home and abroad. And, of course, to the cause of peace on the Korean Peninsula at a time when Pyongyang says it is trying to shift scarce resources away from defense so that it can boost its standard of living and modernize its economy with a greater emphasis on science and technology. Washington has a lot to gain, too. Trump has said he would welcome a North Korea that is more focused on trade and economic growth. Stability on the peninsula is good for South Korea’s economy and probably for Japan’s as well. Though Trump hasn’t stressed human rights, eased tensions could create the space needed for the North to loosen its controls over political and individual freedoms. But it’s naive to expect North Korea to suddenly change its ways. According to a recent estimate, it has over the past year continued to expand its nuclear stockpile. And even as it has stepped up its diplomatic overtures to the outside world, Pyongyang has doubled down internally on demanding loyalty to its totalitarian system. ___ PEACE OR APPEASEMENT? After his first summit with Kim, in Singapore last June, Trump declared the nuclear threat was over. He isn’t saying that anymore. Trump made no mention of the word “denuclearization” during his State of the Union address. Instead, he called his effort a “historic push for peace on the Korean Peninsula” and stressed that Kim hasn’t conducted any recent nuclear or missile tests and has released Americans who had been jailed in the North and returned the remains of dozens of Americans killed in the war. Kim, meanwhile, has good reason to want to turn his summits with Trump into “peace talks.” The biggest win for the North would be to get a peace declaration while quietly abandoning denuclearization altogether, or by agreeing to production caps or other measures that would limit, but not eliminate, its nuclear arsenal. Simply having a summit without a clear commitment to denuclearization goes a long way toward establishing him as the leader of a de facto nuclear state. Unless Washington is willing to accept him as such, that will only make future talks all the more difficult. The U.S. has, however, continued to take a hard line in lower-level negotiations leading up to the summit. Stephen Biegun, Trump’s new point man on North Korea, stressed in a recent speech that as a prerequisite for peace, Washington wants a “complete understanding of the full extent of the North Korean weapons of mass destruction missile programs,” expert access and monitoring of key sites and, ultimately, “the removal and destruction of stockpiles of fissile material, weapons, missiles, launchers, and other weapons of mass destruction.” The question is whether Trump will similarly challenge Kim or choose an easier and splashier — but less substantive — declaration of peace. ___ TALK VS TREATY If he chose to do so, Trump could unilaterally announce the end of the Korean War. It would be great TV. But it wouldn’t necessarily mean all that much. Trump can’t by himself conclude an actual peace treaty. China, and possibly a representative of the U.N. Command, would have to be involved. South Korea would naturally want
Donald Trump-Kim Jong Un summit to focus on North Korea nuke complex
When President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un first met in Singapore last year, there was pomp, there was circumstance, but there wasn’t much substance. Before they meet again in Vietnam on Feb. 27-28, there’s growing pressure that they forge a deal that puts them closer to ending the North Korean nuclear weapons threat. But what could that look like? Kim may be willing to dismantle his main nuclear complex. The U.S. may be willing to cough up concessions, maybe remove some sanctions. The question, however, is whether what’s on offer will be enough for the other side. Here’s a look at what each side could be looking for as Trump and Kim try to settle a problem that has bedeviled generations of policymakers. ___ DESTROYING A NUKE COMPLEX The North’s Yongbyon (sometimes spelled Nyongbyon) nuclear complex, located about 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of Pyongyang, has facilities that produce both plutonium and uranium, two key ingredients in nuclear weapons. North Korea’s state media have called the complex of a reported 390 buildings “the heart of our nuclear program.” After a September meeting with Kim, South Korean President Moon Jae-in told reporters that Kim promised to dismantle the complex if the United States takes unspecified corresponding steps. Stephen Biegun, the U.S. special representative for North Korea, recently said that Kim also committed to the dismantlement and destruction of North Korea’s plutonium and uranium enrichment facilities when he met visiting Secretary of State Mike Pompeo last October. Since fresh diplomatic efforts began last year, the North has suspended nuclear and missile tests and dismantled its nuclear testing site and parts of its long-range rocket launch facility. But destroying the Yonbgyon complex would be Kim’s biggest disarmament step yet and would signal his resolve to move forward in negotiations with Trump. There is worry among some, however, that the complex’s destruction won’t completely dispel widespread skepticism about North Korea denuclearization commitments. It would still have an estimated arsenal of as many as 70 nuclear weapons and more than 1,000 ballistic missiles. North Korea is also believed to be running multiple undisclosed uranium-enrichment facilities. “We could call (Yongbyon’s destruction) a half-deal or a small-deal,” said Nam Sung-wook, a professor at Korea University and a former president of the Institute for National Security Strategy, a think tank affiliated with South Korea’s main spy agency. “It’s really an incomplete denuclearization step” that matches past tactics meant to slow disarmament steps so it can win a series of concessions. ___ U.S. REWARDS To get the North to commit to destroying the Yongbyon complex, some experts say Trump needs to make important concessions. Those would likely need to include jointly declaring an end of the 1950-53 Korean War, opening a liaison office in Pyongyang, allowing North Korea to restart some economic projects with South Korea and possibly easing some sanctions on the North. Kim may most want sanctions relief to revive his country’s dilapidated economy and bolster his family’s dynastic rule. “For North Korea, abandoning the Yongbyon complex is a fairly big (negotiating) card … so the North will likely try to win some economic benefits,” said Chon Hyun-joon, president of the Institute of Northeast Asia Peace Cooperation Studies in South Korea. At the Singapore summit, Kim and Trump agreed to establish new relations between their countries and build a lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula. But they didn’t elaborate on how to pursue those goals. North Korea has since complained about the lack of action by the United States, saying it already took disarmament steps, and returned American detainees and the remains of American war dead. The U.S. for its part suspended some of its military drills with South Korea, a concession to North Korea, which calls the exercises dress rehearsal for invasion. Kim and Moon agreed at the first of their three summits in 2018 to settle an end-of-war declaration. Moon said last month it could ease mutual hostility between Washington and Pyongyang, and accelerate North Korea’s denuclearization. But some worry that a declaration ending the Korean War, which was stopped by an armistice and has yet to be replaced with a peace treaty, might provide North Korea with a stronger basis to call for the withdrawal of 28,500 U.S. troops in South Korea. In his New Year’s address, Kim also said he was ready to resume operations at a jointly run factory park in the North Korean border town of Kaesong and restart South Korean tours to the North’s Diamond Mountain resort. Those are two of the now-dormant inter-Korean projects that supplied badly needed foreign currency for the impoverished North. ___ A BREAKTHROUGH? To make the Vietnam summit a blockbuster, Trump will likely need more than Yongbyon. A bigger deal would see a detailed accounting of North Korea’s nuclear assets, and possibly shipping some North Korean nuclear bombs or long-range missiles out of the country for disabling. That would be costly. North Korea would likely demand a drastic easing of sanctions and a resumption of exports of coal and other mineral resources. A North Korean declaration of its nuclear program would provide invaluable information, if verified by U.S. intelligence, to Washington and others. It would offer looks at hidden nuclear fuel facilities and missile deployments, which is why Pyongyang has been reluctant to provide it. According to South Korean and other assessments, Yongbyon alone is estimated to have 50 kilograms (110 pounds) of weaponized plutonium, enough for six to 10 bombs, and a highly enriched uranium inventory of 250 to 500 kilograms (550 to 1,100 pounds), sufficient for 25 to 30 nuclear devices. Undisclosed uranium enrichment facilities would up the stockpile. Because of the difficulty involved, Trump may want to focus on the North’s long-range missiles, which could, when perfected, pose a direct threat to the U.S. mainland. But such a partial deal would rattle many in South Korea and Japan, which are well within striking distance of North Korea’s short- and medium-range missiles. If lower level officials can’t lay
Moon Jae-In to carry private message from Kim Jong Un to Donald Trump
A beaming South Korean President Moon Jae-in, freshly returned home Thursday from a whirlwind three-day summit with Kim Jong Un, said the North Korean leader wants the U.S. secretary of state to visit Pyongyang soon for nuclear talks, and also hopes for a quick follow-up to his June summit with President Donald Trump. Only hours after standing with Kim on the peak of a volcano that’s at the heart of Kim dynasty propaganda, Moon told reporters in Seoul that he will be carrying a private message from Kim to Trump about the nuclear standoff when he meets the U.S. president in New York next week on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly session. Both Trump, who has repeatedly spoken of his good relationship with Kim, and the North Korean leader have expressed a desire to follow up on the June meeting in Singapore that was meant to settle an impasse that seemed to be edging toward war last year. But there are worries among observers about whether Kim is as committed to denuclearization as he claims. Moon faces increasing pressure from Washington to find a path forward in efforts to get Kim to completely — and unilaterally — abandon his nuclear arsenal, which is thought to be closing in on the ability to accurately target any part of the continental United States. “There are things that the United States wants us to convey to North Korea, and on the other side there are also things that North Korea wants us to convey to the United States,” Moon said at a press center in Seoul where reporters had watched parts of his summit with Kim on huge video screens that occasionally showed live streams from Pyongyang. “I will faithfully serve that role when I meet President Trump to facilitate dialogue between North Korea and the United States.” Moon, who set up the Singapore summit and is eager for another to happen, also told reporters that he’ll convey to Trump his and Kim’s desire to get a declaration on ending the Korean War by the end of this year. The war still technically continues because it ended in 1953 with a cease-fire, not a peace treaty. An end-of-war declaration would be the first step toward an eventual formal peace treaty, but the United States is wary about signing off on something that could result in Kim pushing for the removal of U.S. troops stationed in South Korea to deter the North. Earlier Thursday, Kim and Moon took to the road for the final day of their summit, hiking to the peak of Mount Paektu, which is considered sacred in the North, their hands clasped and raised in a pose of triumph. Their trip to the mountain on the North Korean-Chinese border, and the striking photo-op that will resonate in both Koreas, followed the announcement of wide-ranging agreements on Wednesday that they trumpeted as a major step toward peace. However, their premier accord on the issue that most worries the world — the North’s pursuit of nuclear-tipped missiles — contained a big condition: Kim stated that he would permanently dismantle North Korea’s main nuclear facility only if the United States takes unspecified corresponding measures. “Chairman Kim Jong Un has again and again affirmed his commitment to denuclearization,” Moon said after returning to Seoul. “He expressed his wish to finish a complete denuclearization as soon as possible and focus on economic development.” Moon said North Korea’s agreement to allow international experts to observe a “permanent” dismantling of a missile engine test site and launch pad was the same thing as a commitment to “verifiably and irreversibly” demolish those facilities. Moon says such steps, combined with North Korea’s unilateral but unverified dismantling of a nuclear testing ground earlier this year, would prevent the North from advancing its weaponry through further nuclear and missile tests. Experts say the destruction of the missile engine test site and launch pad wouldn’t represent a material step in the denuclearization of North Korea, which declared its nuclear force complete last year and has designed its most powerful missiles to be fired from vehicles. Moon also said that Kim hoped to visit Seoul soon. “I wish there would be an opportunity for my fellow citizens to see Chairman Kim Jong Un for themselves and hear him talking about the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, peace and prosperity with his own voice,” the South Korean president said. Earlier in the day, the leaders smiled broadly as they posed at the summit of Paektu, their wives grinning at their sides, a brilliant blue sky and the deep crater lake that tops the volcano in the background. They also toured the shores of the lake, where Moon and his wife filled bottles with its water and a South Korean pop singer delivered for the leaders a rendition of a beloved Korean folk song, “Arirang,” which is used in both Koreas as an unofficial anthem for peace. The mountain is important to the Kim family, members of which are referred to as sharing the “Paektu bloodline,” and the volcano is emblazoned on North Korea’s national emblem and lends its name to everything from rockets to power stations. Many South Koreans also feel drawn to the volcano, which, according to Korean mythology, was the birthplace of Dangun, the founder of the first ancient Korean kingdom, and has long been considered one of the most beautiful places on the peninsula. Not everyone was pleased, though. About 100 anti-North Korea protesters rallied in central Seoul to express anger about the summit and displayed slogans that read, “No to SK-NK summit that benefits Kim Jong Un.” The leaders are basking in the glow of the joint statement they signed Wednesday. Compared to the vague language of their two earlier summits, Kim and Moon seem to have agreed on an ambitious program meant to tackle soaring tensions that caused many to fear war last year as the North tested a string of increasingly powerful weapons. Both leaders also
Korean leaders meet in Pyongyang for potentially tough talks
South Korean President Moon Jae-in began his third summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Tuesday with possibly his hardest mission to date — brokering some kind of compromise to keep North Korea’s talks with Washington from imploding and pushing ahead with his own plans to expand economic cooperation and bring a stable peace to the Korean Peninsula. Kim gave the South Korean president an exceedingly warm welcome, meeting him and his wife at Pyongyang’s airport — itself a very unusual gesture — then riding into town with Moon in an open limousine through streets lined with crowds of North Koreans, who cheered and waved the flag of their country and a blue-and-white flag that symbolizes Korean unity. The made-for-television welcome is par for the course for Moon’s summits with Kim. Hours after his arrival, Moon began an official summit with Kim at the ruling Workers’ Party headquarters. The two were joined by two of their top deputies — spy chief Suh Hoon and presidential security director Chung Eui-yong for Moon, and Kim Jong Un’s powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong, and senior Workers’ Party official Kim Yong Chol for the North Korean leader, according to Moon’s office. At the start of their meeting, Kim thanked Moon for brokering a June summit with U.S. President Donald Trump. “It’s not too much to say that it’s Moon’s efforts that arranged a historic North Korea-U.S. summit. Because of that, the regional political situation has been stabilized and more progress on North Korea-U.S. ties is expected,” Kim said, according to South Korean media pool reports and Moon’s office. Moon responded by expressing his own thanks to Kim for making a “bold decision” in a New Year’s speech to open a new era of detente and send a delegation to the South Korean Winter Olympics in February. Even though tens of thousands of people had witnessed Moon’s drive into the city with their leader, the arrival was not broadcast or even mentioned on the evening and night news on North Korea’s central television network. The North often holds off reporting stories until it has had time to review and edit the video for maximum propaganda impact. The results of the talks weren’t immediately available. Seoul officials earlier said they would focus on how to achieve denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, decrease military tensions along their border and improve overall ties. The North’s media said the talks would reaffirm their commitment to Korean peace, unity and prosperity. During a conversation at the Paekhwawon guest house where Moon was to stay, Kim said North Koreans hope diplomacy will yield positive results. “I think it was our people’s wish that we come up with good results as fast as we can,” Kim said, according to the media pool reports. Moon responded that “Our hearts are fluttering, but at the same we have heavy hearts,” and added, “We have built trust and friendship between us, so I think all will be well.” The two are to meet again on Wednesday. More than in their previous encounters, when the mere fact of meeting and resuming a dialogue was seen as a major step forward, Moon is under pressure to leave Thursday with some concrete accomplishments. One of Moon’s objectives — and one that also interests Kim — was clear from the people he took with him. Traveling on Moon’s government jet was Samsung scion Lee Jae-yong and other business leaders, underscoring Moon’s hopes to expand cross-border business projects. Currently, however, all major joint projects between the Koreas are stalled because of U.S.-led sanctions. But the nuclear issue was sure to cast a shadow over negotiations on joint projects. Before leaving Seoul, Moon vowed to push for “irreversible, permanent peace” and for better dialogue between Pyongyang and Washington. “This summit would be very meaningful if it yielded a resumption of North Korea-U.S. talks,” Moon said Tuesday just before his departure. “It’s very important for South and North Korea to meet frequently, and we are turning to a phase where we can meet anytime we want.” But as Moon arrived, the North’s main newspaper lobbed a rhetorical volley at Washington that could make Moon’s job all the more delicate, blaming the United States alone for the lack of progress in denuclearization talks. “The U.S. is totally to blame for the deadlocked DPRK-U.S. negotiations,” the Rodong Sinmun said in an editorial, using the initials of the North’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. It said Washington is “stubbornly insisting” that the North dismantle its nuclear weapons first, an approach “which was rejected in the past DPRK-U.S. dialogues,” while failing to show its will for confidence-building “including the declaration of the end of war which it had already pledged.” While signaling his willingness to talk with Washington, Kim’s strategy has been to try to elbow the U.S. away from Seoul so that the two Koreas can take the lead in deciding how to bring peace and stability to their peninsula. North Korea maintains that it has developed its nuclear weapons to the point that it can now defend itself against a potential U.S. attack, and can now shift its focus to economic development and improved ties with the South. Rarely do the North Korean official media even mention the word denuclearization. Talks between the United States and North Korea have stalled since Kim’s meeting with Trump in Singapore in June. North Korea has taken some steps, like dismantling its nuclear and rocket-engine testing sites, but U.S. officials have said it must take more serious disarmament steps before receiving outside concessions. Trump has indicated he may be open to holding another summit to resuscitate the talks, however. For Kim, the timing of this week’s summit is good. North Korea just completed an elaborate celebration replete with a military parade and huge rallies across the country to mark its 70th anniversary. China, signaling its support for Kim’s recent diplomatic moves, sent its third-highest party official to those festivities. That’s important because
Donald Trump sees mixing trade, foreign policy as good politics
When President Donald Trump pulled the plug on an upcoming trip to North Korea by his secretary of state, he pointed a finger of blame at China and the global superpower’s trade practices. In his recent trade breakthrough with Mexico, Trump praised the country’s outgoing president for his help on border security and agriculture. Both developments offered fresh evidence of how Trump has made trade policy the connective tissue that ties together different elements of his “America First” foreign policy and syncs up them with his political strategy for the 2020 presidential election. Trump’s 2016 triumph was paved in part by his support among blue-collar voters in Midwestern manufacturing states that narrowly supported him over Democrat Hillary Clinton, including Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania. His aggressive trade tactics, epitomized by tariffs and standoffs with longtime economic partners and allies, are aimed at reversing what he has long viewed as unfair trade deals while maintaining support among largely white, working-class voters who have been hurt by the loss of manufacturing jobs. “Trump understands that economic policy is foreign policy and vice versa,” said Stephen Moore, a former Trump campaign adviser and visiting fellow at The Heritage Foundation. “The most important element of foreign policy is to not just keep the world safe but to also promote America’s economic interest. That’s what Trump does — this is America First.” It’s also good politics, in Trump’s view. “It’s a populist position. But it’s also a popular position with a lot of Americans,” Moore said. As he puts a high premium on trade gains, Trump is intertwining the issue with a host of top foreign policy concerns. Trump, asked by reporters last week about North Korea living up to its commitments to denuclearize, said “part of the North Korean problem is caused by our trade disputes with China,” pointing to the U.S. trade imbalance with China. “We have to straighten out our trade relationship because too much money is being lost by us,” Trump said. “And as you know, China is the route to North Korea.” Trade has been a common refrain at the president’s rallies, where he has vowed to pursue “fair and reciprocal trade.” “We don’t want stupid trade like we had for so long,” Trump said during a rally in Duluth, Minnesota, in June. Trump’s second year as president has been marked by a number of trade disputes with traditional U.S. allies and global rivals alike, an approach cemented by his tweet that “trade wars are good.” He imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports in March, prompting retaliation from the European Union and other American allies. Later in the month, Trump announced tariffs on China to combat what he called the theft of U.S. technology from a wide range of goods and services. China struck back with its own sanctions on a variety of U.S. products, including Midwest farm-produced soybeans in a way to hit hard against the president’s base of voters. The two sides have clashed during the spring and summer, raising the stakes in their trade fight. In late July, Trump and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker reached a temporary deal at the White House to avert tariffs on automobile imports and a ramping up of their trade dispute — although the threat still remains. After a breakthrough with Mexico, Trump’s team has been engaged in talks with Canada aimed at creating a new version of the 24-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement. While previous administrations have often used a carrot-and-stick approach to trade as a way to forge agreements, before Trump’s arrival trade agendas had emphasized multi-lateral and bilateral deals aimed at maintaining U.S. leadership around the world, promoting American values and improving human rights. This administration, by contrast, “is leveraging foreign policy tools to achieve its trade goals,” said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch. Critics say Trump’s insistence on trade concessions could hamper his ability to move forward in other areas. On North Korea, for example, Trump has sought to turn his meeting with Kim Jong Un into a vivid example of how his unconventional style can bring longstanding U.S. adversaries to the bargaining table. But by raising China’s trade practices as essential to any progress to ensuring North Korea gets rid of its nuclear weapons, Trump runs the risk of getting bogged down in both areas — and having little to show for it. Mixing foreign policy and trade policy introduces so many variables it’s “virtually impossible to close on a precise policy decision,” said Daniel Ujczo, a trade attorney with Dickinson Wright PLLC in Columbus, Ohio. “You’re constantly chasing after the next issue as opposed to having a very targeted approach to the objective.” Republished with permission from the Associated Press.
U.S. braces for possible cyberattacks after Iran sanctions
The U.S. is bracing for cyberattacks Iran could launch in retaliation for the re-imposition of sanctions this week by President Donald Trump, cybersecurity and intelligence experts say. Concern over that cyber threat has been rising since May, when Trump pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal, under which the U.S. and other world powers eased economic sanctions in exchange for curbs on Iran’s nuclear program. The experts say the threat would intensify following Washington’s move Tuesday to re-impose economic restrictions on Tehran. “While we have no specific threats, we have seen an increase in chatter related to Iranian threat activity over the past several weeks,” said Priscilla Moriuchi, director of strategic threat development at Recorded Future, a global real-time cyber threat intelligence company. The Massachusetts-based company predicted back in May that the U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear agreement would provoke a cyber response from the Iranian government within two to four months. U.S. intelligence agencies have singled out Iran as one of the main foreign cyber threats facing America, along with Russia, China and North Korea. A wave of attacks that U.S. authorities blamed on Iran between 2012 and 2014 targeted banks and caused tens of millions of dollars in damage. They also targeted but failed to penetrate critical infrastructure. Iran denies using its cyber capabilities for offensive purposes, and accuses the U.S. of targeting Iran. Several years ago, the top-secret Stuxnet computer virus destroyed centrifuges involved in Iran’s contested nuclear program. Stuxnet, which is widely believed to be an American and Israeli creation, caused thousands of centrifuges at Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility to spin themselves to destruction at the height of the West’s fears over Iran’s program. “The United States has been the most aggressive country in the world in offensive cyber activity and publicly boasted about attacking targets across the world,” said Alireza Miryousefi, spokesman for Iran’s diplomatic mission at the United Nations, contending that Iran’s cyber capabilities are “exclusively for defensive purposes.” Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who heads the elite Quds Force of Iran’s hard-line paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, has sounded more ominous, warning late last month about Iran’s capabilities in “asymmetric war,” a veiled reference to nontraditional warfare that could include cyber attacks. The Trump administration says it re-imposed sanctions on Iran to prevent its aggression — denying it the funds it needs to finance terrorism, its missile program and forces in conflicts in Yemen and Syria. The sanctions restarted Tuesday target U.S. dollar financial transactions, Iran’s automotive sector and the purchase of commercial planes and metals, including gold. Even stronger sanctions targeting Iran’s oil sector and central bank are to be re-imposed in early November. European leaders have expressed deep regret about the U.S. actions. They hit Iran at a time when its unemployment is rising, the country’s currency has collapsed and demonstrators are taking to the streets to protest social issues and labor unrest. Norm Roule, former Iran manager for the office of the Director of National Intelligence, said he thinks Tehran will muster its cyber forces in response. “I think there is a good chance Iran will use cyber, probably not an attack that is so destructive that it would fragment its remaining relationship with Europe, but I just don’t think the Iranians will think there is much cost to doing this,” Roule said. “And it’s a good way to show their capacity to inflict economic cost against the United States.” “Iran’s cyber activities against the world have been the most consequential, costly and aggressive in the history of the internet, more so than Russia. … The Iranians are destructive cyber operators,” Roule said, adding that Iranian hackers have, at times, impersonated Israeli and Western cyber security firm websites to harvest log-in information. The office of Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats declined to comment Tuesday on the likelihood that Iran will answer the sanctions with cyber operations against the U.S. When the U.S. pulled out of the nuclear deal, the FBI issued a warning saying that hackers in Iran “could potentially use a range of computer network operations — from scanning networks for potential vulnerabilities to data-deletion attacks — against U.S.-based networks in response to the U.S. government’s withdrawal” from the nuclear pact. Accenture Security, a global consulting, managing and technology company, also warned Tuesday that the new sanctions would “likely to push that country to intensify state-sponsored cyber threat activities,” particularly if Iran fails to keep its European counterparts committed to the nuclear pact. Josh Ray, the firm’s managing director for cyber defense, said it hasn’t seen any evidence that Iran has launched any new cyber operations, but he said Iran has the capability to do it and has historically operated in a retaliatory manner. “This still remains a highly capable, espionage-related type threat,” Ray said. “Organizations need to take this threat seriously. They need to understand how their business could potentially be impacted.” Recorded Future’s Moriuchi anticipated that businesses most at risk were those victimized in Iranian cyberattacks between 2012 and 2014 — they include banks and financial services, government departments, critical infrastructure providers, and oil and energy. Those cyberattacks cost nearly 50 financial institutions tens of millions of dollars. The repeated attacks disabled bank websites and kept hundreds of thousands of customers from accessing their online accounts. U.S. prosecutors indicted several Iranians, alleging they worked at the behest of the Iranian government. One defendant allegedly targeted the computer systems of the Bowman Dam in Rye, New York. No access was gained, but prosecutors said the breach underscored the potential vulnerabilities of the nation’s critical infrastructure. In March, the Justice Department also announced charges against nine Iranians accused of working at the behest of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to steal large quantities of academic data from hundreds of universities in the United States and abroad as well as email accounts belonging to employees of government agencies and private companies. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Trade rocks already unstable U.S., China relations
President Donald Trump’s trade battle with China will exacerbate relations with Beijing that are already fraying on several fronts as the U.S. takes a more confrontational stance and an increasingly powerful China stands its ground. The gloves came off Friday as the world’s two largest economies imposed tariffs on billions of dollars of each other’s goods amid a spiraling dispute over technology. It comes at a time when Washington needs China’s help in ending its nuclear standoff with North Korea. Trump’s much-vaunted personal rapport with Chinese President Xi Jinping, whom he hosted at his Mar-a-Lago resort three months after taking office, won’t help patch up differences, experts and former officials say. “The notion that there’s a personal relationship which will somehow supersede China’s strategic interests and the well-being of the Communist Party — including its ability to manage its own economy consistent with its political interests — is absurd,” said Daniel Russel, top U.S. diplomat for East Asia under President Barack Obama. “There’s no scenario in which an affectionate relationship, real or imagined, is going to stay Xi’s hand,” Russel said. Troubles in the bilateral relationship go beyond trade. China has chafed about the scope of U.S. relations with Taiwan; U.S. complaints about its construction of military outposts on islands in the South China Sea; tougher screening of Chinese investment in the U.S.; visa restrictions; and accusations that it’s the main source of opioids. If not new, these are now deepening sources of tension between Washington and Beijing. Even as Trump has sought to cultivate his relationship with the increasingly dominant Chinese leader, his administration has chosen to confront an increasingly defiant China on pretty much all them. It also identified China, along with Russia, as a threat in the most recent U.S. National Security Strategy. In response, Beijing is hanging tough. “China has made it abundantly clear that it will never surrender to blackmail or coercion,” Chinese state news agency Xinhua said Friday. To what extent the trade tensions bleed into other aspects of the U.S.-China relationship, which has retained a mostly upward trajectory since the normalization of ties four decades ago, remains to be seen. But Mike Pillsbury, director of the Center for Chinese Strategy at the Hudson Institute, said U.S.-China relations are headed into “uncharted waters.” Recently returned from a visit to China, Pillsbury said he was told by government officials and businessmen that they were confused about what the Trump administration wanted them to do to get the U.S. to ease the trade tensions. They threatened to back off assisting the U.S. nuclear talks with North Korea. “They explicitly said that,” according to Pillsbury, who has written three books on China and has advised the Trump administration. “They said we will help you (the U.S.) less with North Korea if you start a trade war with us on July 6. Pretty clear, huh?” China has, in fact, already distanced itself somewhat from its significant cooperation with the U.S. on North Korea. After supporting tough U.N. sanctions and scaling back trade with the North after it ramped up nuclear and missile tests last year, Beijing has eased restrictions on its neighbor. That shift began after Trump in March abruptly decided to hold a summit with Kim Jong Un. Once again, China has again focused on rekindling its traditional alliance with Pyongyang — Xi has met Kim three times this year. Abraham Denmark, a former senior U.S. defense official on Asia, said China has welcomed Trump’s sudden shift from confrontation to diplomacy with North Korea and also his decision to halt large-scale military exercises with close U.S. ally South Korea. Yet China also views what happens with North Korea through the lens of the geopolitical rivalry between the U.S. and China, he said. North Korea long served as a buffer against America’s expanding its reach in Northeast Asia to China’s border. “If the U.S. is going to engage in a trade war, which is very troubling for China, politically, it’s going to reduce their willingness to cooperate on North Korea,” he said. Denmark, who is now director of the Asia program at the Wilson Center think tank, warned of a broader deterioration in relations, as Trump pursues more aggressive policies toward Beijing, and China stakes out a position as world player unwilling to be pushed around. “China under Xi Jinping has been more aggressive in its pursuit of its interests. I expect we’re going to see more tensions across the board: in trade, the South China Sea, Taiwan, Korea,” Denmark said. “These are all part of the same story, which is that China is feeling more confident and powerful, and more willing to accept friction and tension in the pursuit of its interests.” On recent trip to China, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis did some damage mitigation, talking up the importance of military cooperation despite his earlier decision to withdraw an invite for China to participate in a U.S.-led multinational naval exercise over its activities in the disputed South China Sea. Xi struck a similar note, calling military ties a “model component of our overall bilateral relations.” That may help to ward off the possibilities of unintended conflict between the two militaries, but it will not prevent a growing rift on other issues. The United States accuses China of using predatory tactics in a push to supplant American technological dominance. The tactics include forcing U.S. companies to hand over technology in exchange for access to the Chinese market, as well as outright cyber-theft. Trump’s tariffs are meant to pressure Beijing to reform its trade policies. On Friday, the Trump administration imposed tariffs on $34 billion worth of Chinese products. Within hours, China retaliated with taxes on an equal amount of U.S. products, including soybeans, pork and electric cars. Russel said that ultimately the Trump administration’s issuing of demands of China on trade and other issues could harden attitudes inside the country, weakening the hands of reformers and strengthening nationalists who vilify the United States. “The net effect of
Experts see risks in U.S. plan to dismantle North Korea’s nukes
As Secretary of State Mike Pompeo prepares to travel this week to North Korea, experts cautioned that the Trump administration’s plan to dismantle the North’s nuclear weapons and missiles in a year is both unrealistic and risky. The State Department said Pompeo would arrive Friday on his third visit to Pyongyang in three months. It will be the first visit by a senior U.S. official since President Donald Trump‘s historic meeting with Kim Jong Un on June 12 in Singapore, where the North Korean leader committed to “complete denuclearization” of the Korean Peninsula. Trump’s questionable claim afterward that the North was no longer a nuclear threat was soon displaced by doubts about how to achieve denuclearization, a goal that has eluded U.S. administrations for the past quarter-century since Pyongyang began producing fissile material for bombs. The president tweeted Tuesday that talks on the next steps with North Korea are “going well” and claimed his efforts had defused any nuclear threat. “If not for me, we would now be at War with North Korea!” Trump tweeted. He said: “no Rocket Launches or Nuclear Testing in 8 months. All of Asia is thrilled.” But experts say there is no proof North Korea’s halt of nuclear and missile tests means the North will take concrete steps to give up such weapons. They also say the U.S. has an unrealistic approach to North Korea’s denuclearization. Less than three weeks ago, Pompeo said the United States wanted North Korea to take “major” nuclear disarmament steps within the next two years — before the end of Trump’s first term in January 2021. Even that was viewed as bullish by nonproliferation experts considering the scale of North Korea’s weapons program and its history of evasion and reluctance to allow verification of disarmament agreements. On Sunday, Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, publicized the more ambitious one-year plan that he said Pompeo will be discussing with the North Koreans. Bolton, who has expressed hardline views on North Korea, said that if Pyongyang has decided to give up its nuclear weapons program and is cooperative, then “we can move very quickly” and they can win sanctions relief and aid from South Korea and Japan. The rapid timeline he proposed contrasts with more measured, methodical strategies that most North Korea experts insist are needed to produce a lasting denuclearization agreement. They say any solid deal will require Kim to be completely transparent about his program — at a time when intelligence reports suggest he will try to deceive the United States about the extent of his covert weapons or facilities. The one-year plan is predicated on the North Koreans “rolling over and playing dead,” said Joel Wit, a former State Department official who helped negotiate a 1994 agreement that temporarily froze Pyongyang’s nuclear program. “If it’s our going-in position, it’s fine. We should give it a try and see where it goes. If it’s our bottom line, it’s dead on arrival and then provides a pretext for John Bolton to make mischief.” To date, Kim has halted nuclear and missile tests and has destroyed tunnels at the North’s nuclear test site, but the authoritarian nation has yet to take concrete steps toward abandoning its weapons programs. Recent think tank analyses using satellite imagery suggest that Pyongyang may even be expanding some facilities linked to its missile and nuclear programs. The Washington Post on Saturday cited unnamed U.S. intelligence officials as concluding that North Korea does not intend to fully surrender its nuclear stockpile. Evidence collected since the summit points to preparations to deceive the U.S. about the number of nuclear warheads in North Korea’s arsenal as well as the existence of undisclosed facilities used to make fissile material for nuclear bombs, according to the report. Some aspects of the updated intelligence were reported Friday by NBC News. A U.S. official told The Associated Press that the Post’s report was accurate and that the assessment reflected the consistent view across U.S. government agencies for the past several weeks. The official was not authorized to comment publicly on the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity. North Korea and Washington have yet to negotiate the terms under which the North would relinquish its weapons, so Pyongyang can be expected to seek leverage in those discussions. But those reported activities could add to misgivings in the United States, which has seen agreements with the North flounder before, often amid allegations of evasion or cheating. Pyongyang has often had its own complaints about Washington over slow delivery of aid and imposition of sanctions. “Denuclearization is no simple task. There is no precedent for a country that has openly tested nuclear weapons and developed a nuclear arsenal and infrastructure as substantial as the one in North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons,” Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, wrote in a commentary published Monday. A strategy by David Albright at the Institute for Science and International Security suggests the U.S. needs to get Kim to disclose a complete list of all his nuclear program sites and materials, including uranium and plutonium. He also said Trump and Kim should decide whether to move the nuclear weapons out of North Korea to dismantle them or do it inside the country. Even if North Korea is cooperative, the magnitude of dismantling its weapons of mass destruction programs, believed to encompass dozens of sites, will be tough, according to Stanford University academics, including nuclear physicist Siegfried Hecker, a leading expert on the North’s nuclear program. The Stanford team has proposed a 10-year roadmap, based on its belief that “North Korea will not give up its weapons and its weapons program until its security can be assured.” Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
