President Trump's Message to Kim, Xi, and the Rest of the World Who Greatly Under-estimate Him

LATE BREAKING NEWS -- PRESIDENT TRUMP HAS LEFT HANOI EARLY. With no advancement of the North Korea deal. With no signing ceremony. But, with a lot of new-found admirers. • • • TRUMP HAS REAGAN'S INSTINCT FOR THE POSSIBLE -- THE RESEMBLANCE TO THE HANOI SUMMIT IS EERIE. The only other US President in living memory to walk out on another world leader (not that Kim Jon-un is a bonafide world leader, but he sure would like to be) was President Reagan -- when he walked out of the Reykjavik Summit with Soviet Secretary General Mikhael Gorbachev. On October 11, 1986, halfway between Moscow and Washington, the leaders of the world’s two superpowers met at the stark and picturesque Hofdi House in Reykjavik, Iceland. Secretary General Mikhail Gorbachev had proposed the meeting to President Ronald Reagan less than thirty days before. The expectations for the summit at Reykjavik were low. Reagan and Gorbachev had established a personal relationship just one year before at their Geneva Summit. In Geneva they attempted to reach agreement on bilateral nuclear arms reductions. Since then, their negotiators had reached an impasse. Both leaders hoped a face to face meeting at Reykjavik might revive the negotiations. The talks between Reagan and Gorbachev at Reykjavik proceeded at a breakneck pace. Gorbachev agreed that human rights issues were a legitimate topic of discussion, something no previous Soviet leader had ever agreed to. A proposal to eliminate all new strategic missiles grew into a discussion, for the first time in history, of the real possibility of eliminating nuclear weapons forever. Aides to both leaders were shocked by the pace of the discussions. A summit that began with low expectations had blossomed into one of the most dramatic and potentially productive summits of all time. At one point Reagan even described to Gorbachev how both men might return to Reykjavik in ten years, aged and retired leaders, to personally witness the dismantling of the world’s last remaining nuclear warhead. But one point of contention remained. Reagan was committed to see his Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) to completion. Gorbachev, fearing an imbalance of power, was equally determined to make sure SDI would never be implemented. Reagan offered assurances to Gorbachev that the SDI that he had championed and funded despite widespread criticism at home, was being developed not to gain an advantage, but to offer safety against accidents or outlaw nations. Reagan offered many times to share this technology with the Soviets, which Gorbachev refused to believe. Toward the end of the long and stressful final negotiations Gorbachev would accept continued development of SDI as long as testing was confined to the laboratory for the next ten years. Reagan would not agree. He could not and would not allow the division of his two-part strategy of the simultaneous elimination of nuclear weapons with the creation of a missile defense shield. After the negotiations broke down without a final agreement, Reagan wrote that he left the meeting knowing how close they had come to achieving his long goal of eliminating the threat of nuclear destruction, and that this was the angriest moment of his career. Despite failing to achieve either man’s ultimate goal, Reykjavik will be recorded as one of the most important summits in history. A year after Reykjavik the US and Soviet Union signed the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), for the first time eliminating an entire class of nuclear weapons. The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) was signed a few years later during President H.W Bush’s term. None of this progress would have been possible without the courage of President Reagan to look beyond past and current hostilities, determined to forge a new and lasting relationship, that would soon provide greater security for people around the world. • • • THE TRUMP-KIM HANOI SUMMIT COLLAPSES. The Guardian, leftist but perhaps not a completely lapdog media outlet for the US ProgDems, said this Thursday morning : "The second summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un ended in failure on Thursday with the two sides far apart on the central issues of disarmament and sanctions relief. The abrupt end to the Hanoi meeting, which was cut short by several hours, was a setback from both leaders who had made long journeys -- Kim by rail and Trump by air -- in the expectation that a deal was within reach. There are no plans for a third summit, but the US has expressed willingness to continue talks at a lower level. The collapse of the two leaders’ talks came suddenly. Late on Wednesday night the White House circulated detailed plans for negotiating sessions, a working lunch and a signing ceremony for a joint agreement. When the two leaders reconvened on Thursday morning, however, they appeared sombre and cautious about whether a deal was possible. A few hours later, the summit was called off. The signing ceremony was cancelled and the official lunch left uneaten. Table settings and name cards went unused in the empty dining hall of the Metropole Hotel, the summit venue, as the leaders made their way back to their own hotels. In his version of events, Trump said the deal had broken down because Kim wanted complete sanctions relief for dismantling the main nuclear complex at Yongbyon, but the US wanted other nuclear facilities, including covert sites, disabled as well." • The Guardian reported early, and this has been corroborated by US media including CNBC, that : " 'It was about the sanctions basically,' Trump said at a press conference in Hanoi. 'They wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety and we couldn’t do that...Sometimes you have to walk, and this was just one of those times....There is a gap. We have to have sanctions and he wants to denuke. But he wants to just do areas that are less important than the areas that we want.' North Korea disputed Trump’s version of events. At an abruptly scheduled midnight press conference in Hanoi, the North Korean foreign minister, Ri Yong Ho, said Pyongyang had only demanded partial sanctions relief in return for closing Yongbyon. He said the US had wasted an opportunity that 'may not come again' and Pyongyang’s position would not change even if the US seeks further talks." • President Trump, according tothe Guardian, made clear that the status quo will continue, with North Korea continuing to suspend nuclear and missile tests, while the US will not take part in joint military exercises with South Korea, which the US President is opposed to anyway. 'I gave that up quite a while ago because it costs us $100 million to do it. I hated to see it. I thought it was unfair,' Trump said, adding that South Korea should shoulder more of the costs. 'Exercising is fun and it’s nice they play their war games. I’m not saying its not necessary. On some levels it is. On other levels it’s not.' " • President Trump, says the Guardian, "remained protective of the North Korean leader and the relationship between the two men. 'We spent all day with Kim Jong-un. He’s quite a guy and quite a character. And our relationship is very strong.' He even defended Kim over the death of the US student Otto Warmbier, who was sent home from North Korea seriously ill in June 2017. 'He says he didn’t know about it and I will take him at his word,' he said. • The Guardian reported that President Trump "gave the most detailed public account to date of the central disagreements that have dogged the negotiations. He confirmed that the US side had confronted Pyongyang with US intelligence about covert nuclear facilities outside Yongbyon and demanded they be put on the negotiating table. 'We know the country very well, every inch of that country,' he said, adding that Yongbyon, 'while very big, wasn’t enough. We had to have more than that, because there were other things that we haven’t talked about, that we found, that we found a long time ago, but people didn’t know about,' he went on, making clear that one of the sites he was talking about was a second covert uranium enrichment program. 'We brought many points up that I think they were surprised that we knew.' He said relaxing all sanctions in return for Yongbyon would been meant giving up leverage 'that has taken so long to build.' ” • US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, as quoted by the Gurardian, said the breakdown of talks was partly caused by differences over the sequences of nuclear disarmament and sanctions relief. The US wanted North Korea to put its current arsenal, thought to consist of several dozen warheads, some mounted on missiles, on the negotiating table as well, he said. Pompeo said nuclear negotiations would resume quickly, although no new meetings have yet been scheduled. Trump flew out of Hanoi in the late afternoon, while Kim stayed in the city for talks with the Vietnamese leadership and will make the 70-hour car and train journey back to Pyongyang at the weekend. It was unclear whether he would stop in Beijing to meet the Chinese president, Xi Jinping. • President Trump said he would call his regional allies, the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, and the South Korean president, Moon Jae-in, as soon as he boarded Air Force One. The breakdown of the summit is a political disaster for Moon, who had been counting on progress that would lift international sanctions restricting trade and investment between North and South Korea. A South Korean diplomat said Seoul was stunned by the result : “It was shock. We are trying to figure out what happened. We need to watch what happened behind the scenes.” • • • THE NORTH KOREAN PRESS CONFERENCE AND THE PRESIDENT'S REMARKS. Fox News reported on Thursday that : "North Korea on Thursday afternoon disputed President Trump’s account of why the highly-publicized summit between Trump and Kim Jong-un collapsed. In a very rare press conference, Ri Yong Ho, the country's foreign minister, said his nation demanded only partial sanctions relief in exchange for closing the country's main nuclear complex and that discussions fell apart after the United States demanded further disarmament steps. Ho’s comments in Hanoi contradicted the explanation by Trump, who hours earlier told reporters that North Korea had demanded a full removal of sanctions in exchange for shuttering the Yongbyon nuclear facility....Speaking before he left Hanoi, Trump told reporters he had asked Kim to do more regarding his intentions to denuclearize, and 'he was unprepared to do that. Sometimes you have to walk,' Trump said at a solo press conference following the summit." • Both President Trump and Secretary Pompeo said said negotiations fell through after North Korea demanded a full removal of US-led international sanctions in exchange for closing the North's Yongbyon nuclear facility. The President and Secretary of Pompeo told reporters that the United States wasn't willing to make a deal without North Korea committing to giving up its secretive nuclear facilities outside Yongbyon, as well as its missile and warheads program. President Trump said : “It was about the sanctions. “Basically, they wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety, and we couldn’t do that. They were willing to de-nuke a large portion of the areas that we wanted, but we couldn’t give up all of the sanctions for that. I'd much rather do it right than do it fast," Trump added, echoing his remarks from earlier in the day when he insisted that "speed" was not important. "We're in position to do something very special." • • • DEMOCRATS APPLAUD PRESIDENT TRUMP. Several prominent Democrats offered rare praise for President Trump on Thursday after he walked away from negotiations with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. The President cut short the highly anticipated summit in Vietnam, unwilling to meet Kim's Jong Un's demand of lifting all sanctions without first securing a meaningful commitment on denuclearization. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi offered measured approval for President Trump's handling of the summit : "I’m glad that the President walked away from that," Pelosi said Thursday during a press conference. "The prospects seemed dim." Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer tweeted that any deal with Pyongyang that "fell short of complete denuclearization would have only made North Korea stronger & the world less safe." • • • THE REAL QUESTION IS 'WHAT ABOUT CHINA.' Fox News reported on Thursday : "President Trump may have hit a roadblock when North Korea's Kim Jong Un refused to meet his demands at Thursday's Hanoi summit, but Trump’s decision to walk away could serve to rattle China’s Xi Jinping. Gordon Chang, an expert on the region and author of 'The Coming Collapse of China,' argued that what on the surface looked like a diplomatic stalemate could in fact be a diplomatic coup for Trump when it comes to North Korea's neighbor. 'I think this is a moment of reassessment for China,' Chang said....Chang told Fox News that Trump also showed Beijing that he is not afraid to walk away from a bad deal amid trade talks and, in doing so, put added pressure on Xi, whose popularity appears to be waning due to the country’s economic stagnation. Chang said Xi has found himself in a 'no win' situation : either he agrees to abandon the country’s 'selfish' model or he continues to watch the economy suffer. Trump recently postponed increasing tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods that would have been effective March 2. He has not given a new date for higher tariffs if negotiations falter. The main sticking point for the US centers on ending cyber theft of commercial secrets, limiting state support for Chinese companies, and ending the forced transfer of technology. Chang said the Trump administration was wise to pass on an invitation from China to visit after the Hanoi summit. 'I think China has to reassess their approach to trade talks,' Chang said." • • • DEAR READERS, two countries must be seriously reviewing what happened in Hanoi -- China and North Korea. • Reuters filed an article on Thursday about the US-China trade negotiations. The first sentence of the Reuters article was this : "US President Donald Trump on Thursday warned he could walk away from a trade deal with China if it were not good enough, even as his economic advisors touted 'fantastic' progress towards an agreement to end a dispute with the Asian country." • In light of President Trump's walk away from the North Korean negotiations, China must wonder if the President is reconsidering the $200 billion higher tariffs on US imports of Chinese goods, even if it meant some unsettling in financial markets, manufacturing supply chains and US farm exports. • Reuters reported that President Trump said in Hanoi after cutting short the summit and foregoing lunch and the photo-op signing ceremony : "I am always prepared to walk. I'm never afraid to walk from a deal. And I would do that with China, too, if it didn’t work out." • The US had been poised to hike tariffs on some $200 billion in Chinese imports to 25% from 10% on March 1 if no deal was reached by then. But, last Sunday, President Trump announced that he would delay the hike in duties due to progress in negotiations with Chinese officials last week. Since then, Trump administration officials have offered few details on the discussions. However, White House economic advisor Larry Kudlow told CNBC on Thursday that : "The progress last week was fantastic," noting that US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer read Chinese officials "the riot act" in talks last week. "We are heading towards a remarkable, historic deal," he added. • Kevin Hassett, chairman of the White House's Council of Economic Advisors, was also upbeat, telling Fox Business Network that Lighthizer and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He drafted "sketches of an agreement on intellectual property theft and trade...that really makes sense for both parties. If you look at the paperwork we’ve got and the line-by-lines that people have sketched out, it’s just about as favorable as you could hope for," Hassett said, adding that final details would need to be approved by Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at a meeting at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida." • However, Reuters reported that Robert Lighthizer, President Trump's chief trade negotiator, on Wednesday was more cautious when he testified before the House Ways and Means Committee, saying much more work needed to be done to nail down an agreement and it was too soon to predict the outcome of talks. He also said the United States would need to maintain the threat of tariffs on Chinese imports for years, even if the two countries strike a deal, a gloomy prospect for companies seeking to end trade war uncertainty. Lighthizer had said the United States is seeking an agreement that prohibits China from competitively devaluing its currency as part of trade talks, following past manipulations of the yuan. Adding more details, Kudlow said China would need to report any intervention in the foreign exchange market : "The documents are very clear: I mean, even things like the currency deal...got no manipulation; they've got to report any interventions in the market. That's part of it." Kudlow spoke after the United States won a World Trade Organisation ruling that China's domestic price supports for wheat and rice were excessive and violated WTO obligations. Trump administration officials have frequently criticized the Geneva-based WTO for its inability to rein in China's trade practices and non-market economic policies." • So, China, with an economy not as robust as it once was and President Xi paying the favorability price for that, must be trying to decide the best path forward in the new age of "Trump, the Tough Negotiator." • AND, what about Kim Jong-un and his insider advisors. They appear to have miscalculated badly, believing that they could hide their uranium enrichment program and hide the total count of their nuclear-warhead-capable missiles. They must wonder what to do next to save face and get their only friend -- President Trump -- back to the table. • But, a funny thing happened on Kim's way to bamboozling yet one more American President to reduce sanctions for zero in return -- his name is Donald Trump. The President stuck to his negotiating objectives, holding out for substantive progress on denuclearization before giving up anything. • Kim came to Hanoi with the same old demands -- substantive sanctions relief without any substantive steps toward denuclearization. North Korean negotiators believed they could get something from Trump if they could just get him to the table. They didn’t believe US negotiators who told them the President wouldn’t compromise on the sanctions-as-pressure campaign. • So, the world is asking 'What's next.' Both sides will go home, assess what happened, and decide where to go from here. Since both nations have invested substantially in the negotiating process, it would make no sense for North Korea to throw that away and go back to issuing fruitless threats. It be also be very unwise for North Korea to resume taking provocative acts. Not only would that undermine the goodwill Kim has built up with President Trump and the world, it would actually make the US look wise for not trusting Kim’s professions of good intentions and improved behavior. And, it would be a real blow to Kim Jong-un's ego to watch his new-found image be ripped apart. • Has Kim learned a hard lesson that will stand him in good stead for the future. Kim now knows he has a serious negotiating partner who will not be duped. He will have to consider how to negotiate seriously in the future. • As for President Trump -- his message to Kim reverberated with China -- but it also must be on the discussion list in Teheran and Damascus and Moscow, and in Afghanistan. • Donald Trump is not the hayseed his critics think he is. He is not Obama -- he won’t cut a deal just so he can say he cut a deal. So, Hanoi's abrupt end is something for the would-be Trump beaters to consider carefully. And, the Insane Democrats would do well to consider the Hanoi message, too.