Posted on 04/19/2018 11:30:35 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Trump declared on Wednesday that he would scrap a planned summit meeting with North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, or even walk out of the session while it was underway, if his diplomatic overture was not heading toward success.
Mr. Trump continued to express optimism — verging on eagerness — about sitting down with the North’s reclusive leader. But as the momentum for a meeting grows in both Washington and East Asia, the president acknowledged that it was a perilous undertaking that could still end in failure.
“If I think that it’s a meeting that is not going to be fruitful, we’re not going to go,” Mr. Trump said at a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, standing alongside Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan. “If the meeting, when I’m there, is not fruitful, I will respectfully leave the meeting.”
Mr. Trump’s words reinforced his decision to send the C.I.A. director, Mike Pompeo, on a secret trip to meet Mr. Kim. Mr. Pompeo, nominated by Mr. Trump last month as secretary of state, played advance man for the president in Pyongyang, laying the groundwork for the planned meeting.
Among the potential hurdles for the gathering, Mr. Trump said, were three American citizens detained in North Korea. The president said that the United States was “fighting very diligently” to obtain their release and that there was a chance of positive developments.
Still, Mr. Trump conspicuously declined to make their release a precondition of his meeting with Mr. Kim. He also did not demand any new concessions from North Korea beforehand, underscoring how determined he is to make history by convening with the leader of a country he threatened with war a few months ago.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Sure. Why waste time?
Good. I would ask nothing less.
Walk away unless they release the hostages. That’s the starting position.
They should have returned the Pueblo as a pre-condition.
If the talks are going nowhere, Trump should leave.
He would simply be doing what Reagan did in the Reykjavik Summit with Gorbachev in 1986.
Reagan refused Gorbachev’s demand NOT to implement the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). When it was clear that this was the sore point of the discussion and Gorbachev would not budge, he walked away.
...later getting what he wanted without compromising a non-negotiable.
I think Trump is of the same ilk as Reagan.
What if Kim is all kissy face but makes an about turn the following week?
Kim knows that he can’t keep his people pacified forever. NK has allowed too many Western tourists in to keep the Western lifestyle a secret from the masses.
The best thing that can happen to Kim is normalized trade with SK, beginning with becoming SK’s cheap labor, and culminating with reunification.
Look at the economic powerhouse that Germany has become since reunification.
RE: NK has allowed too many Western tourists in to keep the Western lifestyle a secret from the masses.
Just curious, what is there to see in Kim’s North Korea?
....makes the libtard community hearts flitter...misleading SLIMES headline..*smiles*
“Look at the economic powerhouse that Germany has become since reunification.”
You do make a valid point. However, East Germany was not in nearly as bad a shape as North Korea was. Not only economically but financially and culturally. The people in the North have been repressed - emotionally, culturally and spiritually. The North’s infrastructure of roads, ports and railroads lags way behind that of the South.
I sometimes wonder if there’s enough money in the world to re-integrate the North with the South. Against the backdrop of trying to improve the North’s overall standing, the people of the North will have to come to grips with what their former govt has done to them. There will be some really ugly reprisals by the ordinary people against the former leaders, former members of the military, formers members of the internal security services, etc.
Not only that - but as much as the people of the South claim to want reunification, I really wonder, when pressed, how badly they’d want it given the problems with reunification.
Dystopia incarnate.
Where’s the cartoon of Lucy pulling away the football?
Koreans want unification, period. They’re an ancient culture suffering division for a mere few decades.
Before Japan was defeated at the end of WWII, the Japanese had built much infrastructure in Asian lands they occupied, where none was before. They built roads, ports, schools, railroads and factories in Korea (which was a territory of Japan for half a century) as well as in Taiwan, China and other countries. After WWII those countries benefitted by the upgrade to a modern civilization - except for North Korea, where the Russians stripped it bare, taking apart infrastructure and shipping it back to Russia. Put them right back into 3rd-world status. Taiwan benefitted and acknowledges the Japanese contribution to their society. I doubt North Korea has any compliments to give to Russia.
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