Ignoring the basic rules of diplomacy, Donald Trump resolves during a visit by South Korean Prime Minister to announce that she wants to meet Northern rival Kim Jong Un. Lee Jae Myung answered with irony: to go to North Korea “and build a Trump World to play golf.” Pyongyang, on the other hand, is not funny to the White House calls with Seoul: “If they continually insist on this military staging, they will surely face an unpleasant situation and pay a high price.”
The US President received this new South Korean counterpart this Monday, Lee Jae Myung, Washington. And the meeting started tense, very tense.
It is that before the visit Trump made comments on his social networks about an alleged “purga” or “revolution” soon, or ongoing, in South Korea. A statement that later, as usual, devalued-as had previously devalued the accusation that South Korea is “a machine of money” thanks to the protection of the United States, which has 28,000 soldiers in the country.
Allies who do not live the best days. Despite the commercial agreement closed in July, which avoided heavier rates on South Korean exports, there are still divergences on nuclear energy, military spending and the details of promised South Korean investments of $ 350 billion in the United States. Interestingly, after meeting with Trump, Lee Jae Myung met executives from more than 20 American companies, including Carlyle Group, Nvidia, Boeing, Ge Aerospace, Honeywell or General Motors.
Returning to pre-finding tension, she would recover this one. It is that in the Oval Room the US President announced that he intends, that “I would”, to meet with the leader of the other Korea, North Kim Jong Un. And that really intends to do it “later this year”. Diplomatically, it was not the most prudent and elegant it could be.
And if the goal was a kind of charm maneuver, approaching North Koreans, Donald Trump failed. Because from North Korea did not come at the following times any reaction, any availability, any intention. Neither then nor before. Since the inauguration of the US President in January, Kim Jong Un had ignored Trump’s repeated invitations to resume direct diplomacy that marked the term between 2017 and 2021. Right diplomacy, although without agreement that looked at the North Korean nuclear program, it is referred. On the contrary, it is also said: Pyongyang even promised, by the leader’s voice, to accelerate this nuclear program.
Now, one of the reasons for this Kim Donald Trump “Ghost” seems to be precisely South Korea. Already after Lee Jae Myung’s visit, and after the blink of Trump, the first deputy chief of the Korean popular army, Kim Yong Bok, quoted by state KCNA, said the recent military exercises between the US And South Korea demonstrates Washington’s intention to “occupy” the Korean peninsula. “If they continually insist on this military staging, they will surely face an unpleasant situation and pay a high price,” he said.
Returning to Lee Jae Myung’s visit, he responded to diplomacy, or lack of diplomacy, of Trump with humor. To the journalist present at the White House only said: “I hope you can [Trump] Bringing peace to the Korean Peninsula, the only divided nation in the world, to meet with Kim Jong Un, build a Trump World in North Korea, where I can play golf, and to truly play a historic role as a world peacemaker. ”
Trump may not even review Kim Jong un briefly, but will walk close: the US President is expected to be present at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea, from October 30 to November 1.
