Diplomacy: Kim-Trump Summit: And the Winner Is... (Istvan Simon, USA)
Istvan Simon writes:I am somewhat surprised that I have not yet read on WAIS an analysis on the summit between president Trump and Kim Jong Un. Maybe they are all in the pipeline, but in any case let me offer mine.
The Wall Street Journal has an article saying the unexpected winner of the summit is China.
I concur that China is one of the winners, but not with it being unexpected. On the contrary, not only this was expected, at least by me, but completely predictable. I explain why in this post.
The whole outcome of the summit was completely predictable. It seemed evident that president Trump was so eager for this summit that he would sign anything, and then hype it to the sky like he has been doing since signing the summit communique. Let's start with the question of why he was so eager to meet one of the worst dictators in the world.
First, the president is in desperate trouble. The Mueller investigation is progressing on pace, Michael Cohen is about to flip on him, and the likelihood that he will die in prison has been increasing every single day. A Blue Tsunami is likely in the November midterm elections which will guarantee that he is impeached. His lapdogs in Congress, Devin Nunes and others, are under criminal investigation themselves and will not be able to continue to protect him from the law for much longer. So this is one point of the general political situation that prompted Trump to try to achieve a major foreign policy success, a historic first that he could hype to high heaven. I think that the other reason for his eagerness for the summit with the North Korean dictator is his evident Obama-envy. Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize, and Trump wants it badly, desperately. So all this explains his eagerness a priori to meet with Kim.
Second, Kim Jong Un completely out-maneuvered Trump much before the summit, and it was evident that no matter what would happen in the future he already won. This happened when he famously publicly declared that he would give all that the Americans wanted from him. He invited journalists when he supposedly blew up his test site. He then visited Xi Jin Ping in China twice, virtually insuring that Trump would have no chance at all in achieving anything meaningful if the summit took place. Kim won because he successfully put Trump on the defensive. If Trump did not go through with the summit, he could credibly claim that it was impossible to do business with the United States, because he had publicly declared his willingness to do all we wanted and yet it was not enough.
If the summit did take place, he would win, independently of what would be signed, because he would become from international pariah a superstar. Indeed he was applauded by loving throngs of genuine real people as he arrived in Singapore--I mean not North Koreans clapping like robots, but actual people hopeful that peace was at hand. Not bad for a guy who just a few months ago murdered his half-brother with a nerve agent at a public airport.
Third, the president of the United States guaranteed that Kim Jong Un would win by a total lack of preparation. To an incredulous world he declared on the eve of the summit that he did not need any preparation, that he would "know" a minute after meeting Kim if something good was to happen at the summit, that "that is what he does," he just gets these things, by magic. This incredible stupidity of our president, which insured that he had no idea whatsoever about what was needed for a nuclear accord, because he failed to get informed about this rather complex matter, virtually guaranteed that Kim Jong Un would be the winner, not just by what I have written above, by also in what would be actually signed. And indeed this happened also. In football terms the final score was 28 Fat Boy vs. 3 for Conald.
Indeed let's see what was actually signed. Kim Jong Un announced an intention for complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. Trump forgot the irreversible, verifiable, etc., so Secretary Pompeo is now busily declaring after the fact that these previously important keywords somehow are implied by the rest. (If so, why was there so much insistence and emphasis on these words prior to the summit?) Not that it matters anyway, as I will analyze shortly.
And what did Trump give in return? He gave for an intention some concrete huge advantages to North Korea. He accepted the North Korean rhetoric on our joint military exercises being "provocative" and said they will no longer happen. This blindsided our ally, South Korea, and threw them under the bus. This is a huge concession and it might cost the United States dearly, should war break out.
To justify this incredible stupidity the president declared that we would save huge amounts of money by not holding these exercises, and suggested that we will save even more when he brings the American forces home in the future. In view of this, we need to ask, does this president have a single functioning brain cell?
Why are the exercises essential? Well they are essential because our forces are continually being rotated in and out of Korea. That means new people are there that are unfamiliar with everything on a regular basis. To say that we will save money by not doing the exercises is the equivalent of saying that we can save a lot of money by not sending our kids to school, no books to buy, teachers to pay, etc. Or in sports terms the same as to say, the Golden State Warriors need no longer practice--they are good enough already as proved by the fact that they are champions once again.
The president withdrew the United States from a meticulously negotiated internationally signed detailed nuclear accord with Iran, which he termed the worst deal ever, and just signed a deal in which he got nothing but a promise, with no details, nothing about nuclear fuel, nothing about rockets, or how it would be verified, nothing about a time table, or a myriad of important details that could not be negotiated because he is completely ignorant of it all.
So how did China win big time? Well the president of the United States just gave up without a peep huge chunks of American influence in the region. He signaled even deeper disengagement of the United States from the world. Who benefits? Evidently China.
Next I address my point that this was no surprise but was completely predictable. I note initially that the president's tweets are a terrible way to negotiate with anyone and it will insure that the United States loses in every agreement we should negotiate by this administration. It is a huge giveaway of the way he "thinks," of what he worries about, where his attention lies. I put the word in quotes, because frankly in my opinion this president is unable to have a single coherent thought. He is unable to think long term or strategically, all his thoughts are tactical and about the 6 o'clocknews on Faux News. That is all he is worried about.
By being completely transparent of what he really is worried about, the president gives a huge advantage to anybody that negotiates with us. He is also completely erratic, which undermines United States credibility on everything. The world views us as a laughing stock--we are not respected by allies and enemies alike. We have become a banana republic under this administration.
That China would win was predictable, because without China there can be no agreement on anything regarding North Korea. The only question was by how much China would win, and the idiotic concessions of Trump insured a win by a huge margin.
The president's slogan was Make America Great Again. What he is doing in reality is the exact opposite--he is Making America Small Again, "saving money" by withdrawing from the world, thereby insuring that our influence is ever diminishing, a huge gain for America's enemies, and a huge loss to ourselves and our allies.
JE comments: A powerful and thoughtful analysis. Does anyone have a more sanguine view of the summit?
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Kim-Trump Summit: And the Winner Is... (Istvan Simon, USA)
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