The US president should also offer the North Korean dictator a way out, should he choose to take it
By Benedict Rogers in UCA News
United States President Donald Trump arrived in Tokyo on Oct. 27 on the second leg of his whirlwind Asia visit. He met the Emperor of Japan after a day in Malaysia for the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit.
Trump headed to Seoul on Oct. 29 for meetings with South Korea’s new president and — crucially — China’s Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.
But there is one leader who is not yet on the US president’s schedule but could be added at the last moment, and that is North Korea’s dictator, Kim Jong Un.
Trump has indicated his openness to extending his Asia tour to meet Kim, saying: “I’d love to meet with him, if he’d like to meet. I got along great with Kim Jong Un. I liked him, he liked me.”
Trump’s relationship with Kim in his first term in the White House was an extraordinary rollercoaster, starting with bellicose threats and insults, warning of “fire and fury” and referring to the North Korean leader as “little rocket man,” but ending with three in-person meetings — in Singapore in 2018, in Hanoi in 2019 and at the De-militarized Zone on the border of North and South Korea later in 2019.
The historic engagement between the two men was an attempt by Trump to end North Korea’s nuclearization and bring Kim in from the cold. Ultimately, it led nowhere, and Kim has proven to be even more belligerent and aggressive ever since.
So what would be the point of another meeting, and what should be on the agenda?
Given that three previous one-to-one summits failed to achieve any progress, why would things be any different this time?
If the two men meet — this week or at any time in the future — there should be three clear objectives.
The first remains trying to stop the expansion of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.
The second should be to counter the growing support the Kim regime receives from Moscow and Beijing.
And the third must be to put the human rights crisis in North Korea right at the heart of the talks.
Setting these goals might appear to be setting oneself up for defeat. It is extremely unlikely that Kim could be persuaded to relinquish his nuclear weapons. Prising him away from his dictator allies in Russia and China will be almost impossible, given the relationship he has built with Vladimir Putin and his inclusion this summer in a gathering of dictators hosted by Xi Jinping. And convincing him to end his reign of repression against the people of North Korea is likely to receive the same response it has for years: disdain.
Nevertheless, if these are not the objectives, then there is no purpose for the meeting.
So unlike during his three summits in his first term, Trump should look Kim squarely in the eye and convey to him a clear message: that he has no hope of ending his pariah status in the world if he does not give up his nuclear arms, close the prison camps and end the atrocity crimes which his regime, and that of his father and grandfather, has been perpetrating for decades.
Trump should study carefully the evidence and recommendations detailed in the United Nations Commission of Inquiry published 11 years ago.
That inquiry, chaired by Australian judge Michael Kirby, concluded that “the gravity, scale and nature” of the appalling human rights violations by North Korea’s regime “reveal a State that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world.”
They amount to crimes against humanity. They include, in the inquiry’s own words, “extermination, murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, rape, forced abortions and other sexual violence, persecution on political, religious, racial and gender grounds, the forcible transfer of populations, the enforced disappearance of persons and the inhumane act of knowingly causing prolonged starvation.”
He should also study the latest UN report, which reveals that 11 years on from the Commission of Inquiry’s report, the situation has worsened. The regime in Pyongyang maintains a level of control over “all aspects of citizens’ lives” that is “the most absolute in decades.”
North Korea’s support for Putin’s war in Ukraine is another point that should be high up in Trump’s talking points. Kim has sent thousands of North Korean soldiers to fight alongside Russian forces on the frontlines. If Trump is serious about stopping the war in Ukraine, he must exert maximum pressure on Kim to stop being an accomplice to Putin’s illegal aggression.
Trump should confront Kim about all these crimes and issue him an ultimatum: either change your ways, or face the full wrath of the United States. And he should also offer Kim a way out, should he choose to take it.
If he lays down his nuclear weapons, opens the prison camps, stops the torture, and pulls back his troops from Ukraine, then North Korea could receive a helping hand out of its dire poverty, humanitarian crisis, economic collapse, and isolation.
Trump likes to pride himself on knowing, to use the title of his book, The Art of the Deal. Like him or loathe him, he used his unique force of personality to pressure both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas to enter into a fragile ceasefire in Gaza.
He has made it clear that he wants the Nobel Peace Prize. If he can — again through sheer force of personality and a combination of severe pressure and appealing enticement — convince Kim Jong Un to follow a different path and open up North Korea, he would add a truly extraordinary and historic achievement to his legacy.
That is an extremely big “if” which, on balance, is unlikely. But it only stands a chance if he puts the North Korean human rights crisis at the center of any talks.
This article was originally published in UCA News.