Trump will demand much from Kim while offering little in return, says Ret. Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis.
President Donald Trump recently confirmed that Secretary of State-designate Mike Pompeo secretly met with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un over Easter weekend, increasing the chances that Trump and Kim may have substantive talks when they meet.
If the administration stays on track, it is possible the talks may significantly reduce the threat of war on the Korean peninsula, strengthen America’s overall national security, and achieve a diplomatic feat that none of the previous 12 presidents were able to realize.
There is justification for cautious optimism:
For the first time ever, the leaders of North and South Korea will meet face-to-face on Friday on the South Korean side of the DMZ. A peace treaty could be on the agenda.
And, at Pompeo’s secret meeting with Kim, Trump said «a good relationship was formed.» At no point during the both the Bush and Obama Administrations did legitimate possibilities for peace even exist.
We must be clear-eyed, however, about the path ahead and remain grounded in reality. A lot could happen to derail the currently positive trends.
Kim could ask for immediate sanctions relief as the price for simply continuing to talk, which Trump has emphatically said he would not do. Trump could demand that Kim agree to a complete, verifiable, and irreversible disarmament before agreeing to any relief, which Kim is not likely to accept.
The North Korean leader may ask a high price for giving up his nuclear weapons. He may, for example, seek not just an ultimate peace treaty, but try to demand the early withdraw of the U. S. nuclear umbrella from South Korea and removal of all U. S. troops from the peninsula as signs of the » goodwill » Kim said he wanted to see from the U. S. and South Korea.
If Trump enters negotiations with the explicit intent on denuclearizing North Korea in the near term, then the talks will collapse and the risk of war will return to late-2017 levels. This outcome is not in America’s interests, however, and not necessary for U.
