A letter from a number of ranking Senate Democrats, including Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), is setting out a series of demands for any denuclearization deal with North Korea. The letter suggests they intend to undermine any sort of deal made in the Trump-Kim summit next week.
The letter demands any denuclearization deal be complete and “permanent,” and threatens legislation to prevent any sanctions relief without their approval. They also demand that Trump force China to play a role in enforcing the deal.
This closely mirrors the way Congressional Republicans undermined the P5+1 nuclear deal with Iran, as reached by President Obama. This ultimately led to the US withdrawing from the deal just a couple of years into it.
With Iran as a precedent, Congressional Democrats likely believe they too can play spoiler for a high-profile diplomatic accomplishment of a president from the other party, and can greatly undermine any denuclearization agreement, risking US compliance with it going forward.
The White House is so far trying to downplay this, saying they don’t intend to ease sanctions until the denuclearization is completed. Yet even if they try to downplay the practical differences, that the Democrats are setting themselves up as antagonistic to the deal clearly has implications.
During the talks, President Trump must now consider his offers to North Korea both as they relate to the deal and as they relate to Congress. More importantly, North Korea will be going over US proposals to see if they can depend on Congress not to reverse an otherwise done deal.
We have no institutional divisions of power any more. Anyone within the governmental elected representatives and unelected appointees,!or bureaucrats within agencies, can hijack any issue, run with it — as if it is the most normal thing to do. The power of lobbying within the limited circle of federal government power brokers, influencers, or just bureaucratic sticks in the mudd — has reached absurd proportions. By pitting parties against each other in an increasingly desparate fight for power — lobbyists have all of us over barrel.
The only way to solve the problem unfortunately has slipped away from us. Return of many functions to states and localities would undermine corporate and financial moguls, making it difficult to manipulatebtoo many strings of power.
What do these clowns think — that the world is not having contingencies in case of our inability to move forward, to engage constructively with others and advance the cause of peace, stability, and development.
Heck, we the ordinary Americans need such a contingency. Fighting the swamp on its territory and on its terms leads nowhere. If you cannot drain it — distribute it. Let each of the fifty states take a chunk, and drain it on their terms. As it stands now, swamp has started to drown state courthouses, making local governments give concessions to these creatures — at their expense. This is what excessive centralization does.
Scumballs
Well, the Reuters article makes it sound not quite that simple. Those Dems seem to be saying they are typically sidelined by Trump regarding foreign policy, and they’re trying to force him to include them in the process, as our supposedly-balanced branches of government are intended to operate. The Dems are probably correct in that criticism, yet overall I agree their position is not constructive if we are keeping successful diplomacy for a peaceful outcome as the top goal.
The Dem Letter jibes with my expectation that the negotiations between Trump and Kim will end in failure.
I suspect that US wants to keep Koreas divided.
What a surprise. Peace is anathema to the USA.
One of the highest-ranking NK defectors says point-blank Kim will NOT give up his nukes. I’m sure you guys know better though…
https://www.nknews.org/2018/06/thae-yong-ho-on-prospects-for-peace-and-denuclearization-nknews-podcast-ep-22/?c=1528094353475
A defector is not one who knows Kim’s thinking at the moment, and a defector has a clear agenda which is not a peace deal with his persecutor.
Mark Thomason knows more about NK than one of the highest level defectors from the nation.
You didn’t listen to the interview. You have NO clue what else he says.
You’ve never even read a single book about NK.
But you know better. Fascinating.
btw he never says peace with NK is impossible.
Why should this bother Trump? Aren’t these demands similar to the ones Trump made in order for us to stay in the JCPOA? Or how about the Dems come up with the 12 commandments like Pompeo put forth? Starting major wars for political reasons works for both sides of the aisle. Just like if Clinton had won we’d have Russia-gate but for different reasons.
Please tell us about the “offers” SCROTUS has made to North Korea (or to anyone at all). Has there been any suggestion except that the USA in its usual way, will bulldoze through a “deal” which is completely in its favor and has no inkling of helping peace or offering to end the Korean War after 65 years? The whole idea of cooperation, agreements, following through on deals already made, considering the point of view of normal humans is apparently unAmerican.
Democrats just want to embarrass Trump. They’ll get us in a war, if it seems to embarrass Trump to get us there. They don’t care about the US, only about excusing the cabal of Schumer and Hillary, and doing it again in 2020.
The whole “Russiagate” farce/tragedy allowed the Dems to waste all their energy on personal jabs at an obvious target while allowing the wilful destruction of the USA’s few remaining democratic institutions and environmental values, and that is only counting domestic matters.
The Nation has an article about that today, calling it “hysteria” in the title. They are solid lefties, and can’t be accused of excusing Trump.
What a joke. These Dems are wacked.
It’s obvious that neolib=neocon. They’re all about war for its own sake and total support for Israel.
While they differ on some things, like who gets office, they are the same on wars and Washington Consensus economics for the rich, austerity for the rest.
Peace is not in the interest of the military industrial corporate interest. (The MICI).
It has been said that there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between the two major parties. But, actually, it came pretty close once. I can’t remember which Congressional session it was, but the difference between the Democrat proposed federal budget and the Republican proposed federal budget was 9 cents per capita per year. Such a large chasm dramatically shows we have clear cut choices before us (sarcasm).