{"id":60432,"date":"2018-03-10T06:12:14","date_gmt":"2018-03-10T06:12:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=60432"},"modified":"2018-03-10T06:12:14","modified_gmt":"2018-03-10T06:12:14","slug":"showman-trump-abandons-cautious-obama-approach-north-korea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/world-news\/showman-trump-abandons-cautious-obama-approach-north-korea.html","title":{"rendered":"Showman Trump abandons cautious Obama approach to North Korea"},"content":{"rendered":"

Showman Trump abandons cautious Obama approach to North Korea<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

When President Barack Obama counseled his successor Donald Trump on the global threats he should expect to face once he assumed office last year, a nuclear North Korea and its unpredictable leader were at the top of the list.<\/span><\/p>\n

But while the meticulous Obama practiced caution in handling Kim Jong Un, the blustery Trump succumbed to his own penchant for reality TV showmanship, culminating with his shock decision on Thursday to agree to meet with North Korea\u2019s leader and become the first sitting U.S. president to do so.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s move is a sharp departure from 60 years of largely arms-length U.S. diplomacy when it comes to North Korea, not to mention his own previous bellicose rhetoric against Pyongyang. It also represents another instance in which the Republican Trump, a businessman who promised to shake up Washington, took a completely different direction than his Democratic predecessor.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s willingness to take that dramatic step is a reflection of his showboat style, throwing out the diplomatic playbook and putting himself in the spotlight, in addition to what aides say is his desire to resolve the North Korea crisis before it spins out of control.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to know whether this is just his supreme confidence that he can get a deal done with his own business experience, or whether he is calculating that he wins either way,\u201d said Jim Steinberg, who served as deputy secretary of state under Democratic President Bill Clinton. \u201cIt\u2019s always hard to know with Trump how well thought through this is.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Obama, like his immediate predecessors, took a far more deliberate approach. As a presidential candidate he famously suggested meeting with U.S. enemies, and ended up relaunching Washington\u2019s relationships with Cuba and Iran as president.<\/span><\/p>\n

But he did not take that same step with North Korea, once warning Pyongyang that \u201cyou don\u2019t get to bang your spoon on the table and somehow you get your way.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Officials who served in Obama\u2019s administration said there was a reason he never met with his North Korean counterpart.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOur assessment was that the North Koreans weren\u2019t serious about denuclearization and therefore sitting down to a summit just accords legitimacy … to the regime, not just the leader, without achieving any concrete national security objective for the United States,\u201d said Michael McFaul, U.S. ambassador to Russia under Obama.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018FEEL THE PRESSURE\u2019<\/span>
\nTrump\u2019s advisers have harbored similar beliefs, but their boss appears ready to seize North Korea\u2019s olive branch.<\/span><\/p>\n

White House officials said that when South Korean national security adviser Chung Eui-yong relayed Kim\u2019s invitation in an Oval Office meeting on Thursday, Trump readily agreed, feeling that U.S.-led sanctions were weakening North Korea.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe believes that he has them at a disadvantage, and that they only made the gesture because they feel the pressure badly, and so this is a good time,\u201d a senior White House official said.<\/span><\/p>\n

While Trump\u2019s move was welcomed by many experts as a way to get the two nations to step back from the brink of conflict, veterans of the Obama administration and other presidencies called for caution and careful diplomacy because of North Korea\u2019s history of breaking agreements.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to be clear-eyed that if this meeting is done in isolation, absent from a broader strategy that advances American interests, it will be a propaganda coup for Kim,\u201d said Ned Price, a former national security council spokesman for Obama.<\/span><\/p>\n

Clinton obtained an agreement to contain North Korea\u2019s nuclear program and came close to a visit to Pyongyang after sending his secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, there in 2000. North Korea ended up abandoning the Clinton-era agreement.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bill Richardson, Clinton\u2019s U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who has made multiple diplomatic missions to North Korea, called the Trump-Kim summit a gamble.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI worry that he might be falling into a trap,\u201d Richardson said of Trump, adding he did not expect the first such summit to produce much but that Kim frequently has been underestimated.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jay Lefkowitz, who was Republican President George W. Bush\u2019s human rights envoy for North Korea, said Trump\u2019s meeting is fraught with peril.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI have some real anxiety about it. But on the other hand I\u2019d rather have dialogue than missiles flying,\u201d Lefkowitz said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Source:-\u00a0https:\/\/in.reuters.com\/article\/northkorea-missiles-trump\/showman-trump-abandons-cautious-obama-approach-to-north-korea-idINKCN1GL30Q<\/span><\/p>\n

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