In criticizing the talks with Pompeo, however, it carefully avoided attacking Trump personally, saying “we wholly maintain our trust toward President Trump,” but stressed that Washington must not allow “headwinds” against the “wills of the leaders.”
The North Koreans sure knows, how to create a split in the WH…
We have a bit of folk wisdom here in the United States for just such situations, and it goes like this: No matter how thin you slice it, it’s still baloney. We gave away huge concessions for nothing. Zip. You could slather soothing verbiage on it to Himalayan heights and that wouldn’t change. The great dealmaker got nothing in exchange for a whole lot.
Nothing ? His ratings in NK are HUGE !
I posted on another thread that I think it’s funny that NoKo picked up on Trump’s mob image (despite the lack of a personal attack on Trump).
Pompeo is so out of his element. Both he and Trump make claims (Trump’s are ridiculous) that NoKo shoots down soon after. It’s as if they think that saying something makes it so.
Trump’s base won’t care. They don’t process nuance, just boasting and shouting.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday brushed aside
North Korea’s accusation of “gangster-like” denuclearization demands.
In the donnie administration … it’s a compliment —
China just got a proxy agreement that gave them greater military dominance in the region. North Korea got to continue their nuclear hijinks and Mr. Kim got a place on the world’s stage for all of his future performances. South Korea and Japan, our alleged ally nations lost our support and gained insecurity in continued economic success. Vladimir had a nice glass of champagne.
Lessee now, Putin’s puppet got:
Zip. Nada. Zilch. Not even a frickin’ NK parade where he could admire the people’s devotion to Kim and the nice shiny new ICBMs.
Donald discovered something had stolen the worlds attention ???
Next thing the boys are invited to the White House…
“People are going to make certain comments after meetings. If I paid attention to the press, I’d go nuts and I refuse to do that.”
Yeah, no. This is not “people” making comments and it’s not “the press.” This is Kim Jong Un taking President Dipshit’s lunch money and kicking his ass.
Let’s see…Kim received a gift that was designed to remind him that Trump had made fun of him on Twitter, signed, not by the artist he may admire, but by the Insulter-in-Chief. Then he got a visit from a SoS who kept talking about an agreement that did not only not exist, but that did not match anything that had been “discussed” at the summit designed to look almost like a summit that grown-ups would have.
They can do anything they want to do. Kim could test a nuke during a Trump UN speech and he wouldn’t mention it.They know they can do anything and he won’t admit that the “agreement” that he thinks he can parlay into a Nobel Prize either doesn’t exist or isn’t working. His ego is involved, as it is with everything, and he can’t admit failure.
"Pompeo added that his two days of talks with senior North Korean officials had “made progress,” and included a “detailed and substantive discussion about the next steps towards a fully verified and complete denuclearization.”
Those include the formation of working group to determine exactly how North Korea’s denuclearization will be verified and a Thursday meeting with Pentagon officials to discuss the return of remains of Americans soldiers killed during the Korean War."
The best I can tell is that the “progress” and “detailed substantive discussion” have only to do with talking about what they may continue later to talk about.
No concessions from NoKo.
No agreements.
No deals.
And the build-up of their nuclear program continues.
A fine bit of Singapore summitting and Pyongyang negotiating and MAGA winning.
The moral of this little diplomatic morality play is this. When Trump elevated Kim, by a one on one summit, he became Trump’s “peer”. There is no need for Kim to “speak to the monkey, when he can speak to the organ grinder.” (paraphrasing Aneuran Bevan)
Why try to fight the obvious? If you work for a gangster, you are one, too.
Gangsters, bullies, blackmailers. They’re finding out that that approach gets them bupkis.
Indeed.
As this article makes incredibly clear.
On the contrary. He got a major distraction to keep the press and his rubes busy looking elsewhere. And he is going to continue to milk this distraction, as well as his meeting with Putin next week, even more vigorously as the Manafort trial begins and the Mueller/SDNY investigations continue to close in.
And we should all be DEEPLY concerned about a large contingent of republican Senators visiting and holding closed door meetings with Moscow just a week before Trump does the same with Putin. Mere months before a crucial midterm, one in which we are taking essentially no steps to curtail further hacking attempts.
Trump administration:
The US has been too weak dealing with this little dictator. We’ll go over there and show him who’s boss.
The North Koreans have the same negotiating style that Trump does. Throw insults and false accusations, make maximalist demands, and once it’s all settled, fail to do their part.
In criticizing the US position but not criticizing Trump, Kim is inviting Trump back for a second leader-to-leader peer-to-peer summit where Trump will make more concessions without getting anything in return, just like the first one.