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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (139791)	3/9/2018 5:38:45 AM
From: TobagoJack	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 220493

Am wondering why the suspect media does not spin the Kim-trump meeting as a trump’s folding in a game of chicken, as opposed to astute geo-craft bloomberg.com Trump’s Historic Bet on Kim Summit Shatters Decades of Orthodoxy More stories by Justin SinkMarch 9, 2018, 11:45 AM GMT+8 By Justin Sink , Toluse Olorunnipa , Margaret Talev , and Bill Faries Plan to meet marks turnabout after year of Trump-Kim insults First face-to-face meeting of North Korean and U.S. leaders Korea Society's Hubbard Says U.S.-North Korea Talks Won't Be Easy Thomas Hubbard, former U.S. Ambassador to South Korea and the Philippines, discusses U.S.-North Korea relations. Donald Trump took the biggest gamble of his presidency on Thursday, breaking decades of U.S. diplomatic orthodoxy by accepting an invitation to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The bet is that Trump’s campaign to apply maximum economic pressure on Kim’s regime has forced him to consider what was previously unthinkable: surrendering the illicit nuclear weapons program begun by his father. If the president is right, the U.S. would avert what appeared at times last year to be a steady march toward a second Korean War. It was classic Trump, showing an unerring confidence to get the better end of any negotiation. But it was also Trump in another way: high risk and high reward, with little regard for those in the foreign policy establishment who worry it’s too much, too soon. “He’s taking a risk,” said Patrick Cronin, senior director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security. “By seizing an opportunity for a summit meeting, a decision that would have taken much more time in another administration, the president has said, ‘I’m going to go right now. And we’re going to test this.”’ Read More: Trump Hails ‘Great Progress’ With Plan to Meet Kim Jong Un There is no protocol for Trump to follow or guidebook for him to fall back on: he would be the first sitting U.S. president ever to meet with a North Korean leader. Chung Eui-yong speaks to members of the media outside the White House on March 8. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg Conferring LegitimacyRegardless of how it turns out, the stunning decision by Trump hands Kim a prize long sought by the regime’s ruling dynasty: the legitimacy conferred by a historic meeting with the sitting president. So much could go wrong. Kim’s proposal may be a ruse to buy time for North Korea’s weapons program to develop further and to undermine sanctions. The summit might collapse, leaving the U.S. president looking hapless and escalating military tensions on the Korean peninsula. It’s a startling turnabout for two leaders who have spent the past year trading personal insults. Trump called Kim “Little Rocket Man” and threatened to rain “fire and fury” on his regime. Kim maligned Trump as a “dotard” while demonstrating that his nuclear program had overcome earlier technical hurdles. Trump holds up a signed proclamation on adjusting imports of steel into the United States on March 8. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg The turn of events will bleed attention from Trump’s domestic political troubles, including special counsel Robert Mueller’s continuing Russia probe and porn star Stormy Daniels’ lawsuit alleging an affair with the president. And the announcement came on a day when Trump had already toppled a pillar of U.S. policy dogma, breaking the long-standing commitment to freer trade by imposing stiff tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. Continued PressureTrump and his team recognize the possibility that Kim’s outreach is not in good faith or is some sort of ploy, an administration official said. But the U.S. president’s advisers believe that if the U.S. continues to exert maximum pressure on the North Korean regime as the summit approaches, Kim may be forced to make real concessions even if he enters talks thinking he can avoid them. The president stressed that Kim would gain no immediate relief in a Twitter post shortly after the meeting was announced. “Great progress being made but sanctions will remain until an agreement is reached,” Trump wrote. Kim Jong Un talked about denuclearization with the South Korean Representatives, not just a freeze. Also, no missile testing by North Korea during this period of time. Great progress being made but sanctions will remain until an agreement is reached. Meeting being planned! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) 9:08 AM - Mar 9, 2018 Even the technical hurdles to reach an agreement are immense, eclipsing the challenges President Barack Obama faced in making a deal with Iran on its nuclear program, said Alexandra Bell, senior policy director at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in Washington. "It’s the Iran deal times 100 because they already have a workable nuclear weapons program with the rudimentary ability to deliver those weapons,” said Bell, who served in the Office of the Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security at the State Department under Obama. Bipartisan PraiseStill, a prominent hawk among Republican lawmakers offered cautious praise for Trump’s gambit. While the Kim regime has been “all talk and no action,” Senator Lindsey Graham said in a statement, “I do believe that North Korea now believes President Trump will use military force if he has to.” “A word of warning to North Korean President Kim Jong Un -- the worst possible thing you can do is meet with President Trump and try to play him,” Graham added. “If you do that, it will be the end of you -- and your regime.” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce said the talks were evidence the sanctions applied by the administration “are starting to work” while warning that North Korea had “repeatedly used talks and empty promises to extract concessions and buy time.” Senator Brian Schatz, a Hawaii Democrat, applauded Trump’s diplomatic effort. “Expectations should be low and history demonstrates that skepticism and careful diplomatic work are necessary, but it is better to be talking about peace than recklessly ramping up for a war,” he said on Twitter. Kim Jong Un inspects the Hwasong-14 missile Photographer: KCNA/KNS/AFP via Getty Images Denuclearization ‘Unlikely’ Adam Mount, a senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists, said that while the talks would extend the period of relative warmth that began during the Olympics, denuclearization remained “extremely unlikely.” Nuclear weapons are fundamental to the Kim family’s grip on power at home. “Kim Jong Un has rational incentives to keep his nuclear arsenal,” Mount said in a phone interview. Mount also cautioned that the meeting was “a massive coup” for a regime that “wants to be seen as a regular nuclear power.” It could lend Kim insights into how the U.S. and South Korea coordinate, and the regime could test Trump by asking for exorbitant terms in exchange for denuclearization. “I do worry about a president who has no foreign policy experience getting out-maneuvered,” he said. “I don’t trust Donald Trump alone in a room with Kim Jong Un.” Watch This Next: Who Is North Korea’s Kim Jong Un? Kim Jong Un: Nuke-Wielding Madman or Astute Dictator? Kim Jong Un: Nuke-Wielding Madman or Astute Dictator? — With assistance by Kambiz Foroohar