North Korean Summit - What you're not hearing.

North Korean Summit, What You Aren’t Hearing
The View from the Middle

When it comes to the long-term potential of the recent Trump – Kim Summit in North Korea, mark me down as hopeful but cautious. I’m not cautious because of Donald Trump or because the agreement Kim and Trump signed is too vague. I’ve read the actual agreement that they signed and I encourage you to do the same. It’s just over one-page long. Don’t take the pundits’ word for it. Decide for yourself. Personally, I thought the agreement was fairly positive, committing both parties to the expected actions roughly agreed to before the summit began. I think the key sentence appears about half way through the document, and it says, “President Trump committed to provide security guarantees to the DPRK, and Chairman Kim Jong Un reaffirmed his firm and unwavering commitment to complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”

I don’t know about you, but that is actually encouraging to me. Kim commits to “complete denuclearization” and Trump promises not to kill him or Nuke his country in return, as long as Kim keeps his commitment. Chuck “head of the resistance” Schumer says that we gave up too much and got nothing. What exactly did we give up? We allowed Kim Jong Un to have his picture taken with President Trump. Actual Cost? Nothing. We allowed the North Korean flag to be positioned next to ours. Cost? Again, nothing. Plus, what would Chuck suggest as a backdrop for this meeting? Did he want or expect pictures of Kim hung in effigy between our flags? That would set a great atmosphere for this first, historic negotiation meeting between our two countries. We also agreed to suspend our joint military exercises with South Korea as long as Kim is behaving himself. Cost? Again, nothing, in fact we will be saving millions.

So why am I cautious? I’m cautious for the same reason many Americans are. I don’t trust the North Koreans. They have hoodwinked every American President since Clinton as we sent them $1.3 billion in currency and aid over those years. That doesn’t sound like much, but to a country whose entire GDP averages just over ten billion dollars a year, that’s a windfall. But there is some reason for optimism with Kim Jong Un.

Kim Jong Un was actually educated in Switzerland and reportedly showed a real appreciation for the Western life style. He supposedly had a particular love for American basketball. This is where Dennis Rodman comes in. Seriously, all things Western, including Rodman is clearly a positive note in this endeavor for Korean/World peace.

But the most encouraging news is the statements which Kim Jong Un made this April that North Korea’s nuclear arms effort had been “successfully concluded” and that there was no need to operate their nuclear test facility because that work “was finished.” He went on to say that he was going to be pursuing a new “strategic line…by concentrating our efforts on socialist economic construction.” This sounds like a man who is trying to move a country in a new direction by convincing friends and foes alike in his country that the benefits of this new direction will be more advantageous to the average North Korean than the costly pursuit of nuclear weapons.

This is something that you haven’t heard from any pundits as they comment on the possibilities of this newest effort to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula. To repeat, I’m hopeful, but cautious, with an emphasis on hopeful. And if that isn’t hopeful enough, we can always bring in Dennis Rodman.