Donald Trump and North Korea: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

About a year and a half after Bill Clinton became President the U.S. discovered that North Korea had created a nuclear weapons programme.  Alarmed, President Clinton came within moments of ordering a military strike against those facilities.  Fortunately his advisors persuaded him to find another course of action.  Jimmy Carter was dispatched to Pyongyang as an evony of the president in an effort to engage Kim-Jong il in talks on dissuading them from their chosen course.  While not initially successful Jimmy Carter was able to have the North agree to talks with the U.S. and South Korea.    Those talks would become the Agreed Framework in which North Korea would cease its pursuit of nuclear weapons and decommission its heavy water reactor in exchange for a light water reactor built by South Korea to provide electricity to the country. 

While not perfect, the Agreed Framework did for, several years  halt North Korea's attempts to construct nuclear weapons. 

The election of 2000 brought in the Republican administration of George W. Bush and with him came the neocons. A group of conservative Republicans who were quite skeptical of the  Agreed Framework believing that the previous administration had acquiesced to the demands of North Korea and were looking for reason to scrape it.  The attacks on September 11, 2001 would give them the pretext for doing so.  It all came to halt following George W. Bush's axis of evil speech at the State of the Union.

George W. Bush would constitute the Six Party Talks which never managed to deter North Korea from its nuclear ambitions with their first test of a weapon in October of 2006. 

Six tests of these weapons have taken place in the intervening years and no progress has been made on halting the North's weapons programmes.

Donald Trump is now the occupant of the Oval Office and in March made a startling announcement agreeing to a summit with North Korea's Kim-Jong un as early as May of this year.  This is Donald Trump were speaking about. A man who will convey one policy message on Tuesday and by Thursday have a complete reversal.  He's done it on every major policy issue confronting his administration.  From immigration, to taxes, social programmes, health care and numerous other issues.  Just this week the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley announced there would be new sanctions placed on Russia only to be undercut by Donald Trump who wants to be besties with Vladimir Putin.

One has to wonder given these conditions what will happen.
 He doesn't believe in diplomacy, has no ambassador to South Korea, no Under Secretary for Asian Affairs, the offical in charge of dealing with this issue resigned, the ambassador designate withdrew his name over comments he made about bombing North Korea and has been involved in twitter insult war with Kim-Jong un.  Given North Korea's record on such negotiations and how difficult those can be, one has to believe that Donald Trump, given his short attention span, lack of foreign policy experience, inability to make the difficult decisions and always listening to the last person in the room. These talks are a major recipe for disaster. 

To further elaborate on the issue of policy and advisors.  Remember John Bolton who was recently named Donald Trump's National Security Advisor.  He was nominated for the post of Ambassador to the UN by George W.  Bush and failed to be confirmed by the senate because of his extreme views on foreign policy.  He believes that foreign policy should be carried out through military  engagement rather than actual policy implementation.  John Bolton, in recent op-ed published in the New York Times advocated for a military  attack on North Korea and would like to see America use it armed forces against  Iran.

Why There's A One China Policy

In 1972 President Richard Nixon went to China beginning what be a 7 year gradual shift in American foreign policy when under President Jimmy Carter the U.S. officially recognized the government in Beijing as being China's legitimate rulers.  Along with that diplomatic thaw and the opening of an official embassy the American government had to sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan.  America wasn't the only country that China placed this condition upon as Taiwan wasn't an independent country, but in their view a renegade province.  Thus began a political fiction:  No country would give offical status to the government on Taiwan even though it was a separate political entity.    One that had  ties to all the major economic, political and military powers but never publicly stating its independence.  

This political fiction was instrumental in keeping that corner of world stable. Yes, there been have cross strait flair ups, diplomatically,  but never an armed conflict.  With the election of Donald Trump that could all change.  He seems determined to punish China for all that ill's America.  Has China manipulated its currency? Most certainly. But initiating a trade war the world's second  largest economy isn't going to change the dynamic.  It will however cause economic hardship for the very people Donald Trump purports to seek economic justice for.  Here's the question: What leverage does Donald Trump hold which would cause the Chinese government to change its economic policies? None. China is one of the largest holders of U.S. debt and controls 90% of the rare earth metals needed to manufacture  every electronic  device in use today included Donald Trump's mobile phone.
There's a One China Policy for a reason as stated above. Yes, it's a political fiction but a necessary one. Without there would have been instability in a region that has little need for it.


Donald Trump, either doesn't care or simply refuses to understand this dynamic and believes that he can bully the the Chinese government into his world view.  Unfortunately for him that's not going to happen.