The argument began before the historic handshake, and has not stopped since. What did the Singapore summit mean?
For the President’s strongest supporters, it was nothing short of a history-changing breakthrough. Sean Hannity in particular seemed in desperate need of a sedative as he breathlessly reported from Singapore, audaciously comparing Trump-Kim to Reagan-Gorbachev. You would think that the Nobel committee should have convened immediately and presented the Peace Prize to Trump just for showing up.
The President’s critics and anti-Trump forces were no less certain of the catastrophe that POTUS had created with the ill-advised meeting, where he was out-negotiated by Kim at every turn. Without extracting a single concession, Trump had given Kim a global platform as an equal of the United States. Further, Trump had praised Kim in terms that were not only grossly undeserving, but unthinkable for an American president, until 2017. And of course, Kim had won the most tangible concession; an end to US-South Korean military exercises, which have been a point of constant irritation for the North. In his post summit press conference, Trump even alluded to the removal of US forces. Overnight, Trump had imperiled US interests in Asia.
The truth here, as in most things political, is somewhere in between.
The Trump-Kim meeting was historic, because nothing like it had ever happened before. But it is also true that until this meeting, no Republican or conservative would have sanctioned a “no-preconditions” sit down with the North Koreans, for precisely the reasons laid out by Trump’s critics – it gives Kim a worldwide stage and the prestige of being treated as an equal by the most powerful man in the world.
But context is also crucial here.
As I noted in my post on Monday, 30 years of Western efforts to trade economic benefits for nuclear weapons have failed catastrophically. Those efforts were bottom up affairs, heavy on the codes and customs of multi-lateral diplomacy. The North Koreans were blatantly dishonest and Western inspections regimes failed. The result was a nuclear armed North Korea with operational ICBMs.
It is not unfair to ask critics what course of action they would have pursued other than this meeting, and specifically, what prerequisites of tangible concession they believe Kim would have provided in order to secure the meeting. If an attack on North Korea to end its nuclear program is unthinkable, then what? More Six-Power talks by mid-level officials in cozy European capitals? What’s our track record for that?
The only path un-walked is what Trump actually did.
Did Trump give Kim a global stage and legitimacy? Yes. Was that a concession without any reciprocity? Yes. No consequential decision comes without a downside. But Trump also opened the last door to resolving the North Korean nuclear issue without conflict. We now have a direct link to the decision maker. This offers not only the last and best hope for a diplomatic resolution, but really the only hope for an ending short of war. If there is war, no one will remember Singapore.
At the same time, Trump and his supporters are hailing the results of the Summit as nothing short of epic. That is clearly nonsense. Trump and Kim catalyzed the beginning of what is sure to be a very long, complex and difficult process, nothing more. The document the two leaders signed with much fanfare is simply diplomatic cotton candy, designed principally to ensure that while appearing to agree, neither side conceded a core negotiating position, where – no doubt – both side remain far apart.
But critics take the lack of tangible deliverables too far. Why didn’t Trump get an exact count of Korean nuclear weapons? What about the labor camps and human rights abuses? Where’s the detailed blue print of what will happen next? Where’s the explicit North Korean commitment to the complete and total elimination of their nuclear program? The failure to account for these items is cited as demonstrable proof that the Summit was an abject failure. But of course that’s not true. Trump and Kim started a dialogue at the highest levels, and that in and of itself is a deliverable. Whether the seeds planted at Singapore are a success or failure will not be known for months or perhaps years.
Then there are the rhetorical flourishes.
Trump-Kim as Reagan-Gorbachev?
Please.
Stop trying to make the comparison happen. It’s not going to happen.
President Trump, whatever qualities his supporters see, is at best a hallow shadow of the greatest conservative president in American history. And Gorbachev? I’m guessing the former Soviet leader is having a good laugh for himself. Gorbachev wasn’t the dynastic successor of a sovereign crime family who personally executed a relative with an anti-aircraft gun at close range, and arranged for the murder of his brother, hat tip, Michael Corleone.
Critics, on the other hand, have called out the unnecessarily effusive praise that Trump lavished on Kim. Here the critics have a valid point. I will never tire of reminding people that the words an American president uses matter. Trump’s praise for the despotic Kim was unseemly and jarring when mixed, during the press conference, with the President’s obvious anger and contempt for Canadian PM Justin Trudeau, a democratic ally and peaceful neighbor.
But one thing I’ve learned about Trump in his 500+ days as president, is that words have no inherent or intrinsic value to him. Consider that each of us, in our own way, has a word hierarchy. For example, words such a “love,” “friend,” “brother,” etc, convey pre-existing bonds, or signal a change in circumstance that we want to express to a broader audience. Words are powerful.
For Trump, in contrast, words are like the game Scrabble, where the object is to find the right combination that will – ugh – make you the winner.
Example? Look at Trump talking about President Obama during the campaign. Look at him when he met with Obama in the Oval after the election. It’s as if there were two Trumps. Indeed, Trump’s historical Twitter feed is a monument to words as a tactical tool to reach an objective, quickly discarded as soon as circumstance change. When Trump is criticized as someone who doesn’t mean what he says, this is at the heart of the matter for both supporters and critics.
So while Trump’s fawning on a despot is a radical break with precedent, it should come as no surprise that Trump went full frontal on Kim with the best words he knows. He wants something from Kim. If praise helps get him there, so much the better to pump Kim up and limit disagreement.
This is where we get to the heart of the matter. Why do so many give Trump a pass for conduct that would have the same people calling for impeachment if Barack Obama, had done it?
The answer is simple. These folks intuitively believe that Trump will walk before selling out the national interest to Kim.
Where Obama spent most of his presidency apologizing for American conduct in the post-WWII world, and actively entered negotiations with the Iranians on their nuclear program as a guilt-ridden supplicant in need of absolution, Trump has a far simpler and more optimistic view of American history and our role in the world after 1945. That view is reflected both in the rationale for Trump’s decision to leave the Iranian nuclear pact, as well as his decision to meet with Kim.
Trump does not torture himself at night, wondering whether it is “right” to demand another sovereign give up its nuclear program, especially when the United States has thousands of nuclear weapons – and of course, the indelible sin of having used them.. Rather, he seems to grasp that nuclear proliferation to despotic regimes is inherently destabilizing, and the purpose of US policy should be to end, not manage, the path of new Members to the nuclear club.
So, if Trump meets without pre-conditions, lavishes praise on Kim, and even promises to end US military exercises on the Korean peninsula, so be it. There is an understanding that better relations with North Korea are not the objective – a nuclear-free North Korea is. So long as Trump and his team keep their eyes on that ball, then the result – whether success or failure – will be on Kim, without permanent damage to US interests.
He will have tried.
The truth of Singapore is that nothing has irreversibly changed. Trump could order a massive display of US force to Korea tomorrow if so wanted. More troops could be dispatched. More sanctions applied. And as most people in Trump’s orbit know, today’s praise is only a set up for tomorrow’s fury.
What we have is an opening. That’s a start.
And Trump deserves credit for it.