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Breaking: Trump, Kim Jong Un to Meet
From CBS News:
South Korea’s national security adviser Chung Eui-yong said President Trump has agreed to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong un, and the North is “committed” to denuclearization. The meeting is intended to take place by May.
Chung also said Kim Jong un has agreed to refrain from nuclear testing, and routine joint military exercises between the North and South will continue as planned.
The announcement was made at the White House after President Trump walked into the White House briefing room Thursday and told reporters that South Korea would be making a major announcement at 7 p.m. He added that he has spoken with South Korean President Moon Jae-in.
“South Korea is going to be making a huge statement tonight on a big subject … on a big subject…on North Korea,” said Mr. Trump, according to CBS News Jacqueline Alemany. Journalists were instructed by the president to turn off their cameras. South Korean news agency Yonhap reported that the South Korean national security adviser, Chung Eui-yong, would be holding a joint press briefing with White House press secretary Sarah Sanders at the White House at 7 p.m.
South Korean national security adviser: "I told President Trump that in our meeting, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said he's committed to denuclearization. He pledged that North Korea will refrain from any further nuclear or missile tests." https://t.co/4hFR3QVIoi pic.twitter.com/vBWktTMuyI
— CBS News (@CBSNews) March 9, 2018
JUST IN, via @PressSec: pic.twitter.com/asdBJhSBD7
— Seung Min Kim (@seungminkim) March 9, 2018
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Published in Foreign Policy
Or, as the MSM may soon dub it, “The Comb-over Summit”
Assuming it’s true as reported….
Is Kim spooked by Xi’s power grab? Easier for Xi to simply annex all of Korea than to have to deal with Kim’s nonsense? Are we coordinating with China behind the scenes? Is this a diplomatic hammer and anvil operation?
Alternatively, it could be a trap. Pence, Ryan, and anyone else who is in line better be in separate well guarded locations while this is happening. Where is the meeting to occur? In Tessio’s territory…. where it’s safe?
Trump can get cake too.
Only Trump could go Korea. He’ll take the slow boat though.
Donald Trump put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
The one who came to him with the deal, that’s the traitor.
Mona will tell us that Genghis Kahn went to Korea.
With Dennis Rodman as mediator?
A lot of Democrats are upset tonight that peace through strength worked.
A guy on Tucker Carlson says North Korea is running out of currency reserves.
More like referee. Steel cage match. I like Trump given his size and World Wrestling Federation experience.
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Sounds like a positive development, but we should keep the “mission accomplished” banners securely furled for the moment.
Seriously, it could be. South Korea is still on the peninsula coming off of mainland China. I would assume that Kim is not the only or even most menacing source of pressure for them.
My tinfoil hat told me the same. I can’t help it. I think it is a genetic predisposition. No cure.
Agreed. And I’m not the first one here to think Un’s intentions may be dubious. My point being, politically, this is very good for Trump.
I guess that means I can take that vacation in April knowing that global thermonuclear war won’t occur until after the May meeting.
It would purely stink to be stuck in Michigan if a global thermonuclear war starts instead of being in Texas.
Good plan. Global thermonuclear war wouldn’t have the —– to hit Texas.
It probably would. But given a global thermonuclear war I would bet my odds of survival would be better in Texas than in Michigan – even if Houston got nuked and Detroit did not. (Why would anyone bother nuking Detroit? It already looks worse than Hiroshima the day after the bomb hit.)
First step of grand urban renewal plan?
Well, North Korea has actually put out maps targeting Texas, not Michigan. But hey. Talk in general is cheap. It’s only actual action that matters.
Detroit is a city that can be described as a place that quite literally isn’t worth the cost of a nuke to blow it to hell.
I have lived in Michigan and lived in Texas. Given the social fabric of both states, should a nuclear war start, I would bet that at the end of five years Texas would be back stronger than ever, while Michigan would be descending into chaos – and that even if Texas got hit by several bombs while no one bothered with Michigan.
A few thoughts:
1. Now we know what Pence and Sister Kim talked about when they met at the Olympics. Either that, or it was drunkenly suggested by Kim when he met with SK officials recently. (Probably both.)
2. I give this like a 3% chance of actually happening.
3. If it does happen, Trump will probably get rolled by Kim. Just like he does when he meets any foreign leader
4. It’s better to jaw-jaw than to war-war.
5. That being said, if this does end up happening, it’ll probably be a [crap] show. Our diplomatic corps has been so hollowed out by Trump that we’re not equipped for a meeting like this.
Well, hopefully neither state will ever be blown up. I hear Michigan is beautiful in the country. :).
The only point I’d fully disagree with is 2. There is so much prestige for Kim Jong Un and North Korea to gain from a direct meeting with the President of the United States, that I think it’s certain to happen. Kim isn’t going to do something to blow it up before it happens, and Trump is too invested in claiming credit for him to blow it up either.
Also, I think if Trump’s getting rolled, it’s not going to be at the meeting, but right now, e.g. if the claim that denuclearization is on the table for the sole purpose of having a meeting, only for that meeting to be an announcement of completed and permanent nuclearization.
The more I read about it this morning, the more I’m inclined to agree with you.
However, you’re talking about an international summit two months from now involving a man who is nortoriously flighty, unpredictable, and straight up unstable. So there’s a high chance Trump will call it off before then. Or reverse himself. He may go back and forth several times. Two months is a long time in Trumpworld.
Kim, for his part, won’t back out. He has everything to gain.
It is. Which makes visiting it even more frustrating.
I think that’s a fair point, but Trump is actually relatively easy to predict: he’s a narcissist. His sudden changes in temperment and decision making are almost always motivated by narcissistic injuries, e.g. when someone contradicts his image of himself.
Kim is not going to insult Trump now that he’s about to get what he wants. The biggest danger would be if someone else came along and managed to pursuade Trump that having the meeting would make Trump look weak or stupid. I don’t know who would say that, because even those who are most irrationally opposed to Trump are unlikely to argue that a war on the Korean peninsula is preferable to a meeting with Kim Jong Un.
I live in Texas and love the bluebonnets in the spring, but one thing that no one said about west Texas ever? The endless stretches of flat lands where tumble weeds blow and one can easily get the impression that zombies are living behind the gas stations? “This sure is beautiful.” Ha! I’ve often wondered how in the heck those parts of the state were ever settled at all!!!
It seems Detroit is the one empty shell of a city in Michigan. Ann Arbor is a bastion for progressives, but I’d guess no more than Austin. It’s interesting to me that you’re so hard on those wolverines and spartans. They seem to have a lot in common with people in the Lone Star state.
Yeah. I think what’s more likely to happen is that someone (probably several) will try to talk Trump out of it.
That may not carry the day, like with tariffs. But it might, like with the last minute jfk assassination records redactions. Or he may do it just because his instincts (to do it) are telling him the opposite of what everyone says to do, also like with the steel tariffs. But this is more than signing a piece of paper that someone else prepared. He has to fly across the world, and Trump is famously lazy.
This is part of the problem with electing an unstable lunatic with no experience as president
To me, the biggest factor is that it’s two months from now. Consider that two *weeks* ago, we weren’t even talking about tariffs. Two months is an eternity.
So far, so good. His lack of “civic knowledge” or whatever and foreign policy is terrifying.