Tough talk didn’t bring Kim Jong Un to the table, and it won’t help with Iran, either.
On April 24, French President Emmanuel Macron walked into the Oval Office with one overriding mission: persuade President Trump not to ditch the Iran nuclear deal. It looks like he failed. Macron later told reporters that Trump repeated his long-standing view that the nuclear agreement — formally called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — is “the worst deal ever, it’s a nightmare, it was a catastrophe.” According to Macron, Trump indicated that he would probably fulfill his campaign pledge to scrap the deal when U. S. sanctions relief is due to be renewed May 12. This impression has only been strengthened since.
What Trump seems to have internalized from North Korea is that threats and “maximum pressure” can force his opponents to negotiate away their nuclear programs on American terms. Yet U. S. pressure is probably not the primary driver of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s willingness to bargain, nor is there much reason to believe that Pyongyang is ready to completely dismantle its nuclear infrastructure. Trump’s faulty assumptions and unrealistic expectations could doom prospects for peacefully deescalating one nuclear standoff — and applying these misguided lessons to Iran could manufacture yet another.
Trump appears to think that he will go to his summit with Kim, scheduled for late May or early June, and be handed the keys to the country’s nuclear kingdom. His campaign of economic sanctions, “fire and fury” threats and “Little Rocket Man” taunts and tweets worked, the White House logic goes; North Korea is now facing deep economic and military vulnerability and is willing to trade its nuclear weapons — its “ treasured sword of justice ” — for sanctions relief and assurances that the United States won’t attack the country.
After a purported thermonuclear test in September and his third intercontinental ballistic missile test in November, Kim said that North Korea’s nuclear deterrent force was “complete ” and that the nation could shift to priorities like economic development. Kim’s declaration before his recent summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in that the North would end nuclear testing should be seen for what it is: a pledge by a country that no longer thinks it needs to test its nuclear weapons. And although Trump hailed North Korea’s announcement that it would close the testing site used in September, the country has others.
So while Trump believes that Kim is coming to him out of weakness, Kim almost certainly believes he initiated his successful “charm offensive” out of strength.
