On Thursday evening, the White House surprised the media by announcing that President Trump would plan a meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. The media have been confused by the announcement — they were big backers of President Obama’s commitment to meet with enemies of the United States without preconditions, and so they feel the need to cheer Trump here, too. The Associated Press called it a “bold, audacious and potentially groundbreaking gambit by both leaders.”
On the Right, ambivalence reigned. The Right despised Obama’s open-door policy with regard to dictators, and said that Obama’s willingness to legitimize them would lead to added strength for the world’s worst leaders. Now, they’re confused by Trump: is this Reagan bullying Gorbachev, or is this Obama surrendering to the mullahs?
So, here are the arguments for both sides.
Trump Could Break The Impasse. The argument here is that all talks thus far have failed, from Madeleine Albright to Jimmy Carter, and that only a presidential meeting can push Kim to back away from his nuclear program. Sarah Huckabee Sanders cast the meeting as part of Trump’s “maximum pressure campaign” against Kim. Kim has supposedly opened up the possibility of denuclearization of the Korean peninsula in return for American guarantees to leave him in power.
Trump Could Get Played By Kim. Kim wants to be seen as a respected world leader. A meeting with Trump could certainly achieve that. And while Kim may have talked about denuclearization, that’s highly unlikely — the stated policy of the Kim regime has always been removal of American troops from the Korean peninsula, and Kim may demand that concession in return for supposed denuclearization. In realpolitik terms, Kim would be a fool to give up his only guarantor of security: nuclear weapons. And Trump presumably isn’t going to start removing troops anytime soon — although Thomas Wright at The Atlantic makes the case that Trump could fall into that trap.
There’s also the issue of South Korea. The current South Korean administration is a so-called “sunlight” administration, committed to appeasement of the North Koreans. It was President Moon Jae-in who conveyed Kim’s supposed offer to the Americans. Moon’s office proclaimed that North Korea has “ample intentions of holding talks with the United States”; Moon isn’t closed to the idea of removing American assets from South Korea. That means that the United States must be wary of being undercut by the South Koreans as well.
Then there’s the problem of what happens if the meeting accomplishes nothing. Trump will have a stake in proclaiming that North Korea has moderated its stance, even if they haven’t — just as Obama and his acolytes claimed that Iran was a moderate state, even as they empowered the greatest terror sponsor on the planet.
So, this all comes down to Trump’s fabled negotiation skills. The most likely outcome here is an empty promise by Kim to scale back his nuclear program in return for promises from the US to back off their threats, as well as cash from the world for “humanitarian” purposes. That isn’t a win. It’s just kicking the can down the road. But perhaps Trump will surprise the world again. It’s become his M.O., after all.