Although North Korea has made all the promises it made in Singapore — and many more — many times before and never honoured them, there is a semi-plausible case that the outcome may be different this time.
This time, North Korea has its back to the wall economically, perhaps even more than it had in the past. It actually has nuclear weapons so it can extract a bigger price. It’s confronting a US president who conceivably may attack it if everything goes wrong. And it has more prestige and credit than was on offer before. And, perhaps, the Chinese may want it to deal.
Even if all this is true, and much of it is doubtful, it does not guarantee a real outcome. Certainly the North Korean media, reporting Kim’s triumph, has said nothing about giving up nukes.
On the facts, the likelier interpretation is that Kim has had a monumental success and given away, in effect, nothing.
Part of the problem with much analysis is that people approach it as pro or anti Trump. It’s much better to look at the facts and the deep patterns of behaviour in Pyongyang and Beijing. Also, try this mental exercise: Conceive the whole process as Kim’s initiative. Suddenly it makes a lot of sense. Kim got past the moment when it looked as though Trump might attack. He has secured some relaxation of sanctions by the Chinese. Trump has promised Kim aid from South Korea and Japan during the process of denuclearisation — a very old and sad story, that.
Kim achieved Pyongyang’s maximum diplomatic goal of a summit with the US President, something his father had tried very hard to get. Kim also ended his regime’s isolation. He had summits with the Chinese and South Korean presidents, the Russian Foreign Minister visited him, and so did several other statesmen.
Most important, Kim got real, tangible concessions from Trump, concessions he has always wanted and that the Chinese wanted as well. For a start, Trump announced he had cancelled annual US military exercises with South Korea.
I have argued that you should judge Trump by what he does rather than what he says, much less tweets. But this announcement by Trump was truly grotesque and immensely damaging. Trump described the US-South Korea exercises as “provocative”. He lamented how much they cost. He abused South Korea for not paying sufficiently towards the costs of the US military. And, in an act that is almost deranged, he didn’t notify his South Korean allies of any of this in advance.
So in one ridiculous formulation Trump has embraced the language of North Korea and of the Chinese government to describe the US alliance system in Asia. The champagne corks surely were popping in the foreign and defence ministries in Beijing. For slightly different reasons, a central aim of both Pyongyang and Beijing has always been to weaken the US alliance with South Korea.
As usual, Trump had his facts wrong. He said cancelling the exercises would save the US “a tremendous amount of money”. At times it’s as if Trump inhabits a fantasy world. South Korea pays about half the costs of US troops in its country. It is probably cheaper for the US to have soldiers stationed in South Korea than in California. Seoul is going to pay almost all the costs of scheduled US base expansions.
And for its own purposes the US military always needs to train. Doing this training in South Korea probably is cheaper than doing it in the US. But this is detail below the big strategic picture. The fact Trump can get it so wrong is disturbing. But, more important, there was no need for Trump to trash the alliance in this way. As former Reagan and Bush senior official and ambassador Frank Lavin pointed out, you cannot just turn allied military exercise agreements on and off like a light switch. Real human relationships are involved. Every nation has its pride. Trashing US standing with allied governments and publics is mad.
Trump so often behaves like a bully, insulting his democratic allies and sucking up to dictators. Much of the international criticism of Trump is exaggerated and often a bit deranged, but this kind of wanton capriciousness with the structure of the US position in Asia is intensely irresponsible.
The North Koreans want to damage the US-South Korea alliance because it would improve their position vis-a-vis Seoul. The Chinese want the same result because it gravely weakens the whole US position in Asia.
In any event, why did Trump need to give Kim a concession in advance? It is right for Trump to push as hard as possible for peace. But by giving North Korea some of its key strategic objectives without getting anything except kind words and platitudes in return, Trump is not breaking the mould from previous presidents, he is repeating their worst mistakes.
Trump said he wanted to get US troops out of South Korea altogether eventually. So what is Trump’s vision for the US-South Korea alliance? Further, Trump said a US military option against North Korea could cost 20 million or 30 million lives. A few months ago he was saying this was a real option. He discredits and devalues his own words. More than that, he gives enormous leverage to Kim. If Kim abrogates the deal now, and Trump calls him out over it, Trump in effect has to say he’s prepared to have 20 million or 30 million deaths if he takes action.
He has thus greatly narrowed future US policy options. And Kim understands to the marrow of his bones that he has got all this only because he possesses nuclear weapons, which is a tremendous incentive for him to keep them.
For all that, Trump may have delivered the world a terrible option but the least worst option, that we will have to live with a nuclear armed North Korea and the best we can do is deter and defend, as we do with all the other nuclear armed states.
North Korea will surely string out this “denuclearisation” process long after Trump’s term has ended. I hope the deal works. There is no convincing reason to think it will.
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Has North Korea’s young dictator, Kim Jong-un, comprehensively outplayed US President Donald Trump? It’s too early to say, and every sensible human being hopes the Trump-Kim deal to get rid of North Korea’s nukes works. Trump deserves nothing but praise for the priority he has given this issue.