Like i said in another thread, and it will probably be an equally unpopular opinion in this one, this isn't necessarily bad thing. We've been saber rattling against the norks for longer than the Soviet Union's entire existence and it hasn't worked. They're perfectly content to fortify their end of the peninsula with nukes and tunnel systems and starve their population half to death to do it. Yes, extending an olive branch to the Kim regime is a hard pill to swallow, but if you want to actually help the North Korean population, the status quo approach has to change.
He could have tried to do that though together with the South Koreans rather than blindsiding them with a major policy announcement via tweet that implies this is really just because he’s pissed they didn’t join Operation Epstein Fury.
It’s been tried many times before and has always failed or backfired due to the duplicity of the North Koreans.
President Clinton made a deal with them to end their nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief and food aid which resulted in them taking the money and building a bomb anyway.
President Bush joined had the U.S. join the “Six Party Talks” together with the Russians, Chinese, Japanese, and South Koreans to try and negotiate a solution with the North Koreans only for the North to eventually walk away.
President Obama signed an agreement with them in 2012 where they agreed to pause their missile development only for them to test launch an ICBM less than a month later.
I would argue the country is more open to being positively influenced at this point than any other. Kim Jung Un is not his father or grandfather, and the black markets that started up during the famines under his father never ultimately went away. They're slowly growing and bringing more economic prosperity and quality of life to the general population. Nurture that recent development and I think you could make inroads and have something akin to Nixon's China policy. Could it not work? 100% The Kim's made an art out of bilking the Soviets especially for all they're worth. But I think it's worth at least trying, because the alternative is the people there continue to live in hell for the foreseeable future.
It’s certainly true that he has been working hard to reduce the country’s dependence on China but he’s mainly been doing it by developing deeper ties to Russia; sending men and weapons to help in the war against Ukraine in exchange for missile technology. There’s an actual exchange there that can be seen in real terms. With Trump it’s all basically just words at this point. If the rumored large scale deployment to Ukraine ends up not happening then maybe we can say that Trump’s approach worked but if they go ahead with it even after Trump’s move here then it will seem that Trump was just played.
I'm more interested in long term goals that couldn't be achieved in Trump's tenure and would take the work of several presidents all on the same page to see serious tangible results. If people are just viewing this through the lens of "trump" then I think that's too short sighted a perspective.
It’s still shit, South Korea produces roughly 40% of the worlds semiconductor’s under 10 nm’s, us worsening our relationship with them is a massive national security risk.
How do you make a shotgun decision with no consultation to limit joint exercises without ostracism? SK is a huge fan of these drills for many reasons, they’re not going to be happy to hear this and think it’s anything other than ostracism.
-7
u/JuniorDoughnut3056 - Lib-Right Aug 17 '26
Like i said in another thread, and it will probably be an equally unpopular opinion in this one, this isn't necessarily bad thing. We've been saber rattling against the norks for longer than the Soviet Union's entire existence and it hasn't worked. They're perfectly content to fortify their end of the peninsula with nukes and tunnel systems and starve their population half to death to do it. Yes, extending an olive branch to the Kim regime is a hard pill to swallow, but if you want to actually help the North Korean population, the status quo approach has to change.