The future of Donald Trump and Kim Jong-Un’s curious relationship

As Donald Trump made his first significant step into enemy territory with Kim Jong Un, the devices struggled to get a regular picture. The then-45th president of the United States patted the North Korean leader’s arm in 2019, and therefore Kim led him across the line to South Korea, which is actually still at battle.

Behind them, within the heavily fortified Demilitarised Zone ( DMZ), it was chaos as TV crews jostled to get a clear view through a line of North Korean bodyguards who seemed surprised by the onslaught of US media.

A writer once requested assistance, and the press secretary of the White House was forced to pull them from behind a range of safety to the Trump-Kim image call.

This conference had been planned carefully, and it turned out to be true.

” I never expected to meet you at this position”, said Kim to Trump.

Only 30 days prior, the US senator had planned the last-minute meeting on Twitter, as it was known, when he suggested meeting Chairman Kim at the DMZ” just to shake his hand and declare Hello (? )” to the DMZ. )”!

The impromptu invitation created a third and last incredible TV moment between a showman president and a once reclusive dictator.

There could be more, it seems right then. Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity in an interview spread next Thursday that he will again suddenly “reach out” to Kim.

Trump continued,” I got on with him. He doesn’t practice any religion, either. He happens to be a wise guy”.

The BBC is aware that during the Biden administration, there hasn’t been much communication between the US and North Korea in the last four decades. Washington has sent emails, but Pyongyang has not responded.

The next meeting between the two countries, when Trump was last in company, did not advance a longed-for offer to find North Korea to give up its prized possession – its nuclear weapons.

Kim has since expanded his weapon program and asserts to have successfully tested a fast weapon despite being subject to stringent foreign sanctions.

It’s a far cry from the blatant “fell in love” Trump once proclaimed.

The question is, does the relationship become rekindled- or could it be a quite unique picture this time around?

After all, Washington may be dealing with a completely unique Kim right now. His partnerships and fortunes have changed over the past four years, and his connection with another world president appears to have improved as well. But, was it indicate that this has all changed his powerful with Trump for good?

Jenny Town, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center and the producer of Stimson’s Korea Program, says,” It’s certainly a possibility.”

” You can tell by Donald Trump’s decision to appoint a special envoy for sensitive issues that include North Korea, I think it gives you an indication of kind of where his thinking is on that right now”.

Trump has brought back some of the people who organized his conferences with Kim, including Richard Grenell, the former German embassy, who has been chosen as his political minister for specific operations to” some of the hottest spots” in the world, including North Korea.

However, in the years that followed, things have changed.

” North Korea may spent the first year trying to prove to Trump that Kim Jong Un isn’t who he was in 2017- that he’s physically stronger, that he’s socially stronger, and that, if they ever get back to that stage, it’s going to be a really unique negotiation”, argues Ms Town.

Kim is also having a romantic relationship with Vladimir Putin, the chairman of Russia.

He provided food and fuel to North Korea in exchange for his Ukrainian war efforts. Pyongyang is no longer as eager for pleasure from US restrictions.

Rachel Minyoung Lee, a top North Korean media analyst for the U.S. state, told the BBC that Pyongyang has “primed” its citizens by making public announcements about Donald Trump’s profit.

But she believes the “bar for entering deals will now be higher than before”.

” Two points will have to occur,” she continued. ” North Korea is hungry enough to return to the negotiating table, for example, if the United States makes an offer to North Korea that is significantly different from what it did in the past, or the economy is crumbling or has experienced a major cooling off in its relations with Russia.”

Trump’s statement,” I was very friendly with him,” at a recent signing ceremony in the Oval Office, sparked speculation that he is ready to resume discussions with Kim. He liked me. I liked him. We were able to get along very well.

According to Sydney Seiler, who served as North Korea’s national intelligence officer until last year and is now a member of the Trump administration, the Trump administration should be realistic this time.

” The arms control thing is a red herring. There is no way to arm North Korea with weapons. He claimed that we have tried using arms control.

” Maybe North Korea will sit and talk, and maybe they’ll refrain from long range missile launches, and they’ll not conduct a seventh nuclear test, and the issue will be largely manageable. That is the ideal scenario.

The worst-case scenario is that they will continue to launch and test even if you speak. So, Donald Trump would have to consider: what is the value of engaging North Korea?”

Especially because they will both have visible scars from their most recent encounter.

I watched the Winter Olympics in 2018 in South Korea’s chilly Pyeongchang with an unexpected guest – sitting below my balcony seat was Kim’s sister.

My South Korean producer screamed out in surprise when a member of the Kim family made a first trip to the South since the Korean War’s end. U.S. Vice President Mike Pence was standing next to her.

From what I observed, they could barely look at each other. But it was still an extraordinary diplomatic move, one that would have been impossible a few months ago.

When Trump took office in January 2017, he had been given warnings about North Korea. The last three presidents had tried and failed to pressure the state to give up its nuclear weapons after several rounds of talks and sanctions.

Kim almost always launches a missile after Donald Trump’s inauguration.

The president took to Twitter to express his fury, threatening to pour “fire and fury” down on North Korea. He dubbed Kim as” Little Rocket Man”, in return Pyongyang nicknamed Trump” Dotard”.

Then, first from Pyongyang, then Washington, there were threats about pressing nuclear buttons.

Trump claimed on Twitter that his nuclear button, which is much bigger and more powerful than his, and that it works.

After a year of acrimonious exchanges and brinkmanship that had some in Seoul wondering if they should plan for war – everything changed.

Moon Jae-in, the liberal president of South Korea, had hoped Pyongyang and Moon Jae-in would form an icebreaker. After his parents fled the North Korean war, they were given birth to him in a refugee camp. He had even visited his aunt there in a rare family exchange between the two countries.

When Pyongyang inquired as to whether North Korea could compete in the Winter Olympics? Moon led Seoul, who kicked it right in the face.

Trump and Kim met for a summit in Singapore and both agreed to make history.

The North Korean leader took a selfie as though he were taking a night out with the boys and took a stroll through the glitzy downtown at night. He’d barely travelled outside his own borders- but he was proving that he too knew how to put on a show.

However, even after his frequently photographed handshake with Trump, this now very private form of diplomacy failed to produce any tangible agreements for North Korea to disarm.

They both pledged to meet again and signed a vaguely worded statement to work toward nuclear disarmament.

The stakes were higher for the second Trump and Kim show in Vietnam. A US president who boasted of his deal-making prowess would not suffice.

We waited for hours outside the French-colonial Metropole Hotel’s gates, where the pair had initially been informed that they were having lunch, in Hanoi’s humid streets.

But it turned out, lunch had been cancelled.

Three participants in the summit have been contacted by the BBC to find out what went wrong. It seems both leaders may have overestimated the hand they had to play.

If Kim renounces all of his nuclear weapons, material, and facilities, Trump made an offer to lift U.S. sanctions against North Korea.

The president reportedly received warnings that the North had previously rejected this deal, but he believed his success would depend on how close he got with the North Korean leader.

It did not.

Kim threw a gambit on Trump to consent to a more modest agreement. He also believed that their close friendship would help them triumph. He offered to dismantle his aging Yongbyon nuclear complex for an end to all US sanctions since 2016.

” Singapore had given Kim Jong Un some prestige and the impression that the United States is finally coming to terms with me and talking to me on my own terms,” asserts Mr. Seiler.

He arrived at the table anticipating that because he had been coached by South Koreans who said Donald Trump is politically desperate, he is no longer listening to John Bolton, and he is willing to accept a deal that will give you sanctions relief, he said quietly.

But the president had also been briefed. He was informed that a facility close to Pyongyang could still produce uranium. The United States claimed to have been monitoring other websites that the North believed had been kept secret for some time.

” I think that they were surprised that we knew,” Trump later said.

Kim’s offer was not perfect, but it was insufficient for the US president. ” Kim Jong Un arrives at the table, but he doesn’t have a plan B,” asserts Mr. Seiler.

” So, when Donald Trump says we’ve got to do more than this, Kim Jong Un remains totally inflexible.”

The BBC is aware from its sources that Kim attempted to save the deal. He sent an aide to remind Washington what was on the table and that they would dismantle all of the Yongbyon plant.

Trump was already making his way to the airport, though.

” The story of Hanoi needs to be gotten right,” asserts Mr. Seiler. The common theme is Donald Trump walked out of the room. Donald Trump left when Kim Jong Un refused to agree to put everything on the table. That’s a very unintelligible and pedestrian assessment of what took place at Hanoi.

As Trump flew back to Washington, the North Koreans took the unprecedented step of holding a press conference. Ri Yong Ho, the foreign minister, stated to reporters that this opportunity may never come back.

Kim may reconsider resuming her involvement in discussions if it hasn’t already.

There was undoubtedly a chance there, Jenny Town says.

Kim Jong Un had actually boosted domestic expectations in North Korea by implying that the breakthrough was imminent and that it would lead to positive outcomes.

” If we could have taken advantage of that moment, we could have been on a very different track. Were you going to undergo easy denuclearization? Definitely not. But would we be in a very different place in terms of tensions on the Korean Peninsula and how far North Korea has gone in its nuclear development, maybe. Evidently, we won’t ever know, but there is a certain lack of will there.

Donald Trump’s unconventional diplomacy eased tensions for a while, but it did not stop Pyongyang’s nuclear program from growing.

His 20 steps into North Korean territory may also have legitimised a regime with one of the worst human rights records on the planet.

However, after three meetings, Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un’s apparent connection gave some hope that the Korean Peninsula would eventually end in peace.

Credits for the top photo: Getty Images

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