Asian Angle | How Trump and the US fell for Kim Jong-un’s deadly strategic deception
- The Hanoi summit continues the quarter-century record of unrelenting failure that is US nuclear diplomacy with North Korea
- Pyongyang’s provocations over the years are as cruel as they are calculated, and the US keeps falling into the trap of underestimating the regime
In hyped-up political theatre – as in a prizefight – when the contest ends in a controversial decision, draw, or snub, a sequel usually follows.
Hence, in a post-Hanoi sequel, Kim will once again have the upper hand.
It was Kim who, by dangling the possibility of denuclearisation and a chance at making history, coaxed Trump to meet last year. When Kim presents Trump with a sugar-coated offer of further disclosure of his nuclear programmes, the US leader, already ensnared in a labyrinthian process of negotiations with considerable political capital in sunk costs, is likely to take the bait.
Just as Kim’s father, Kim Jong-il, reaped well over a billion dollars in recompense from the US (and further billions from South Korea) for a partial freeze of his nuclear accoutrements, the third-generational tyrant also has billions to gain by decommissioning some exhausted reactors and missile bases.
Why would the US allow it?
Because it always has out of hubris, gullibility, and political expediency.
