New South Korean President Moon Jae-in has made clear he wants to get reconciliation talks going with North Korea, and took a bit of a shot at US sanctions pushes in comments yesterday, saying he thinks sanctions should only be considered as a tool to get North Korea to the table for talks.
The Trump Administration has insisted in recent weeks they consider diplomacy to have “failed,” and President Trump appeared very dismissive of the new push for diplomacy today, saying he would only accept discussion with North Korea “under certain circumstances.”
Trump didn’t make clear what those circumstances would be, naturally, but did appear to reject the need for talks in the near term, bragging that he’s handling North Korea “very well, very firmly” without diplomacy. The State Department added that they want North Korea to “cease all illegal activities” for the possibility of talks.
These comments of course are deliberately vague while being deliberately unattainable, underscoring the Trump Administration aversion to diplomacy in general, and long-standing US opposition to reaching any sort of peace deal with North Korea.
It is particularly noteworthy that President Trump reacted to the suggestion of talks with the exact same language he reacted recently to questions about starting a nuclear war in Korea, that “we’ll see what happens.”
President Moon is likely to pursue diplomacy with or without America’s blessing, particularly with both China and Russia endorsing a diplomatic tack that the US sees as contrary to their own ambitions. The US could easily risk their long-term relationship with South Korea in this regard, by spurning peace talks out of hand.
South Korean should see how unpredictable this American President is.
Any possible war with Americans and North millions will be dead.
If South can’t see this,then you deserve what’s waiting for you.
All of the land, wealth and political power in South Korea is owned by the upper-half of society, the democratic majority, namely the 51% most wealthy. Surely, the problem is not lack of vision, but an overabundance of greed.
Trump now following normal US pattern: no peace anywhere; keep things stirred up; Washington in charge
We’ll see.. so far he’s bluffed but no real action. Nobody wants to reveal their cards right now so this might be politics.
I personally think Trump should have a talk with Kim Jong Un and maybe forge some 10/20 year pathway for NK, but I can understand why NK would want to continue to be defensively hostile
I wonder how The Orange One would react if President Moon Jae-in informed Washington, D.C., that they have 1 year to vacate the AO?
Unlikely the Phillipines, Japan is occupied… And they no doubt agree to it so as to avoid having Tokio nuked… Did the occupation agreement expire, or is it still extant…??? That will determine WHEN Ole Uncle Sam boggies home…
Do we have to wait for an interpretation to what the Donald really meant? Were his surrogates being inaccurate again? Fake news? Another anti Trump article? I never know who to blame when some bombastic idiocy is attributed to the poor misunderstood commander in chief.
I’ve noticed with this Administration, they’ve been consistent this way: Department Head – even Cabinet Head – makes a statement, and usually within 12 hours, usually less, the “White House” makes a “clarification to the department head, unless The Trumpster” himself tweets out at 4 am a usually complete reversal from said department head. You can pretty much figure out who’s driving the bus but regardless, they’re all Bozos on that Bus.
You can’t believe the relief that I finally found someone (the current Administration) that allowed me to complete one of my life’s aspirations…to use THAT phrase in polite conversation.
Moon has stated that he will talk to North Korea “when the conditions permit.”
Surely, absolutely nothing has changed.
Yaa….. Good luck with twilling the guy who just WON, ostensibly to turn his OWN countries negotiations to “all too often bull in the china shop & bafoon” Trump… Especially as Trump struggles with a political mess he him self created… Kim is a dangerous nutjob. Smart people would never knowing send volátiles Trump to negotiations with nutjob Kim… Send Denise Rodman or MADANA…
US diplomacy has failed? What diplomacy? We made Kim an offer he couldn’t refuse. He refused. However, US can’t fight North Korea alone. How would that look?
North Korea’s only purpose in a war with South Korea would be to rid Korea of Korean’s who are willing lackey vassals of the US empire. President Moon’s message to Kim is simple: Let’s quit spending all our wealth fighting each other. Combine our forces to get rid of the US. South Korea is tired of bowing to the US as well. Pretty attractive proposal I would imagine.
SK Prez should tell DT to go stick it where the sun don’t shine!!
The US is opposed to peace.
This is not just true on the Korean penisular, but its true in every crisis hotspot in the world. Most of which were created by US actions.
The US is firmly opposed to peace.
Correct. Manufactured conflict justifies the existence of the American military-financial empire.
“justifies”
Trump is just jealous because Moon won the popular vote. Cant blame that on the Mexicans.
LOL, Moon, you thought just because you were duly elected as President of your sovereign nation that you had a right to talk to your neighbor? No, and that is the hypocrisy of the Democracy lovers of Washington DC. Democracy to these gangsters is do as they say not as they do.
South Korea, Russia, and China should tell the US federal government to get bent.
Should Moon bow down to E Willy Coyote, he will just prove they are occupied, and not a sovereign nation. Which is how the U.S. operates.
Let us hope the arrogance assumption that only the US can decide anything is dismissed by Moon, and if the “relations” with South Korea ie it being a puppet to the USA, are lost, so much the better for Korea.