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Trump has already struck out twice with North Korea, and barring any major strategic shifts, the third time probably won’t be any different. Kim has successfully courted Trump by appealing to him directly, both through flattery and televised addresses. And since Trump kicked off diplomatic engagement with North Korea, Kim has only become stronger. It doesn’t help that the United States has suspended military exercises in the region to placate Kim, which affects our readiness to respond to threats.
Given that Trump has politicized security decisions, Kim may be under the impression that the United States’ security needs are an afterthought for a President who is hell-bent on campaign promises and scoring political points.
If the President logs out of his Twitter account long enough to listen to North Korea experts, they would likely advise him to temper his public displays of affection for Kim and share some analytic realities that he may not want to hear.
Strength in numbers
Typically, before presidents announce a willingness to meet with a foreign leader, experts present them with the current context so they can decide whether it’s worth spending more time meeting.
Kim is finding strength in numbers. While he’s been developing a relationship with Trump, he’s increased the number of nuclear weapons in North Korea, won friends around the world and pursued illegal transactions. President Trump has turned a blind eye to this activity and remains committed to staying in negotiations even though they’re bearing fruit for Kim, and not for us.
Trapping Trump
North Korea continues to pursue a strategy that’s worked well for Kim since last March — he’s appealing directly to President Trump, oftentimes through televised messages.
Isolating the President from his own home team is a winning strategy for Kim. Trump has shown that he puts more faith in what Kim tells him than analysis his own experts have been trying to get across: Kim has no intention of denuclearizing. And if the President’s priority is really just propping up his own ego, he’ll be reluctant to acknowledge that he’s been played by Kim, which may give the North Korean leader more time to carry out his nefarious plans.
If the President actually gets briefed by his experts, they would probably warn him not to fall into Kim’s transparent trap of personal flattery and criticisms of his administration. Otherwise, Kim will continue to toy with the President while he buys more time, develops more weapons and gains global acceptance as an illegally nuclearized power.
All options used to be on the table
Without a heavy dose of self-reflection and the willingness to put our country’s security needs ahead of his desire to play a peacemaker worthy of a Nobel Prize, the President will probably try to schedule a third summit with Kim. But Kim will not change course unless we give him a real reason to do so, and any attempts to convince him that we’re serious about denuclearization is going to take a lot of work. Meanwhile, Kim’s counting on Trump being a creature of habit — and those habits include putting his own ego ahead of the security needs of the American people.
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