From the brinks of potential conflict to an unprecedented personal rapport between leaders, the tenure of former President Donald Trump saw a roller coaster of developments in U.S.-North Korea relations. The period was marked by a dramatic shift from fiery exchanges and military threats to a series of high-profile summits, and ended with a stalemate at the Hanoi summit. The question now lingers: How has Trump’s presidency enduringly impacted the delicate balance on the Korean Peninsula?
The Trump administration’s approach to North Korea was unconventional, to say the least. Direct engagement with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, with a mix of both confrontational rhetoric and flattery, punctuated Trump’s term. The two leaders went from Trump’s infamous “little rocket man” remarks and threats of “fire and fury”, and Trump himself vow to respond to North Korea’s unacceptable behaviour with ‘.re and fury the world has never seen’.
In May 2018, high-ranking officials from the Trump administration (National Security Adviser John Bolton, first and foremost) stated that North Korea ‘would be better off without weapons of mass destruction’ and should be ‘getting rid of all the nuclear weapons… very quickly’, as it would be the only acceptable term of the deal with the DPRK. Infuriated, Pyongyang protested.
“If I were Kim Jong Un talking to my advisers in Pyongyang, I’d be thinking of whether I [should] call President-elect Trump the day after the election to congratulate him” and say, “Why don’t you come to Pyongyang? Let’s meet here,” says former Trump adviser John Bolton.
“And Trump might do it,” continued Bolton in an interview with VOA’s Korean Service on Friday.
“The danger with another Trump administration is he prizes making deals more than the substance of the deals, which he often doesn’t understand in the international context,” said Bolton.
Gary Samore, former White House coordinator for arms control and weapons of mass destruction during the Obama administration, told VOA via phone on Friday, “Kim Jong Un may very well believe that if there’s another summit, he can persuade Trump to lift international economic sanctions” and “weaken the U.S.-ROK [South Korea] alliance as Trump did in the Singapore meeting.”
Relevant articles:
– What Would a Second Donald Trump Presidency Mean for U.S.-North Korea Relations? , The National Interest Online, 04/30/2024
– The Summit in Singapore and the Failure of Donald Trump’s Diplomacy, 24.09.2018
– Analysis: Does North Korea’s Kim Want Another Summit With Trump?, March 12, 2024
– North Korea accuses US of politicizing human rights issues, April 27, 2024