After Trump's Threat of Military Action, North Korea's Kim Jong Un Makes Historic Concession
In a surprising shift of thought, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un appears to be very much interested in diplomacy.
Kim recently met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, and he is set to meet in April with South Korean President Moon Jae-in before speaking face-to-face with U.S. President Donald Trump the following month.
As indicated by Business Insider, after years of attempting to build his country’s nuclear arsenal, Kim has come “out of the shadows to make history.”
And it’s noteworthy that so many new developments regarding North Korea have occurred in the first 14 months of the Trump presidency.
“Since Trump took office, Kim has overseen a series of North Korean firsts,” Business Insider noted. “North Korea tested its first thermonuclear device, its first intercontinental ballistic missile, and has now conducted its first ever leader-to-leader act of diplomacy.”
It would appear that Trump’s “maximum pressure” strategy against North Korea is accomplishing its intended goal.
Trump has faced criticism from those who claim he has provoked North Korea and its leader by threatening military action against the country on Twitter and elsewhere.
Perhaps most memorably, the president said that if North Korea continued to threaten America, the U.S. would unleash “fire and fury like the world has never seen.”
In addition to threatening military sanctions, the administration has implemented harsh sanctions against the regime.
And most recently, Trump replaced national security adviser H.R. McMaster with John Bolton, who has not been shy about discussing the possibility of striking North Korea. According to Business Insider, thanks to this last move, “Trump may have only grown more credible.”
In a statement, meanwhile, the White House indicated that the meeting between Kim and Xi is “further evidence” that the Trump administration’s strategy is working.
“We see this development as further evidence that our campaign of maximum pressure is creating the appropriate atmosphere for dialogue with North Korea,” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said, according to CNN.
Trump himself said on Twitter he heard from Xi that the meeting with Kim “went very well.”
Received message last night from XI JINPING of China that his meeting with KIM JONG UN went very well and that KIM looks forward to his meeting with me. In the meantime, and unfortunately, maximum sanctions and pressure must be maintained at all cost!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 28, 2018
“Received message last night from XI JINPING of China that his meeting with KIM JONG UN went very well and that KIM looks forward to his meeting with me,” the president tweeted Thursday morning. “In the meantime, and unfortunately, maximum sanctions and pressure must be maintained at all cost!”
Still, some experts have advised caution in the wake of Kim’s meeting with Xi.
“The very fact of this meeting alone, and certainly the tenor of the Chinese statement about it, really does increase Kim Jong Un’s leverage in the upcoming talks. It shows that Kim has a friend in Beijing,” Adam Mount, a senior fellow and director of the Defense Posture Project at the Federation of American Scientists, told CNN.
Trump, though, is optimistic that “peace and the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” is a real possibility.
For years and through many administrations, everyone said that peace and the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula was not even a small possibility. Now there is a good chance that Kim Jong Un will do what is right for his people and for humanity. Look forward to our meeting!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 28, 2018
“For years and through many administrations, everyone said that peace and the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula was not even a small possibility,” Trump tweeted Thursday. “Now there is a good chance that Kim Jong Un will do what is right for his people and for humanity. Look forward to our meeting!”
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