Sen. Perdue Praises Trump on Leadership During North Korea Summit
Sen. David Perdue (R, GA) had words of praise for President Trump’s leadership during the North Korea summit. Sen. Perdue is a current member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Perdue:
“This critical summit is happening because of President Trump’s leadership and unwavering resolve to make the world a safer place. We want to move toward the objectives President Trump has laid out: total denuclearization, as well as a potential peace treaty to end the Korean War, with reunification talks down the road. President Trump and Secretary Pompeo deserve an enormous amount of credit from the global community for getting North Korea talking and engaging in a productive way. The Trump Administration has my full confidence as they move forward in these key talks.”
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There are very few things I can give Trump accolades for, this is one. The dumb way of refusing to talk is hopefully in our history.
I think I’ve posted this before; we have been talking to them, for decades:
https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/dprkchron
But I will reserve judgement for the moment. It’s just normal to have a certain amount of skepticism when it comes to NK, based on their past behavior.
I am curious if and how you differentiate the application of those principles to Cuban-American relations.
Cuba vs North Korea
Cuba…you act as a government dissident you might get arrested
NK…you get caught with a radio that can receive broadcasts from China…go to the gulag…and as an added bonus 3GENERATIONS of your family will go with you.
There is absolutely no comparison between the two. We are the only country that sanctions Cuba. Every other country is happy to do business with them (except maybe the ones we threaten if they do).
Cuba policy over 50 years has failed to topple the Castro family. They will both die in power of old age. Thats why the Obama Adm. tried something new and it was working.
Ugh. I will say it: we should never talk to the North Korean regime. Ever. That regime is only interested in remaining in power at all costs because if they ever cede power they know that at the very best they will lose their power, wealth and privileges and be kicked to the bottom rungs of any society they live in – they won’t be given posh accommodations in France like the “political exiles” of the 70s and 80s – and it is quite possible that they are charged with crimes for their numerous human rights violations and/or the families of their victims set upon them in vigilantisim. That is all despotic regimes care about. Sure maybe in the beginning they do actually have political or other goals, but over time it becomes self interest and self-preservation.
I get that there is a mindset that “no regime is beyond diplomacy and negotiation” but North Korea is the best example that this mindset has limits. And there really shouldn’t be an ideological component to this because the North Korean regime isn’t communist in any sense. I am not talking about the old no true Scotsman type “real communism hasn’t been tried” that has been used to skirt around the issue of the serious shortcomings of self-proclaimed socialist and Marxist regimes. But North Korea gave up any pretense of even trying to implement a true communist system long ago. They really are just that bad. You are free to hate communism – I certainly do – but at least if they were trying to be communist you could say that they were motivated at least in part by ideology and that would be justification for attempts at diplomacy, at least by other socialist states like China and Viet Nam. But since we don’t even have that, why bother?
The approach towards North Korea should be sanctions, isolation, everything possible to tighten the grip on them economically. Get them to the point where they can’t pay the salaries of their army, their secret police and the other muscle that keeps the regime in place. Where they can’t pay the top level and midlevel government officials. Some would say that this would never happen because China would do all they could in order to keep them afloat because China needs (wants) them as a buffer against the U.S. allies in the region, especially Japan and South Korea. (In fairness to China, we DO have military bases in Japan and South Korea.)
Fine then. Open diplomacy with China. Convince them that regime change in North Korea is a worthy goal – if only to stop the stream of refugees from North Korea into China, sure many of them eventually wind up in South Korea, Japan and Europe but some do stick around in China permanently – and give them concessions to make it worth their while. We would just have to be clear to the Chinese that the goal of regime change would be to put a better regime in place to the benefit of the North Korean people, and not to get a reliable U.S. ally like North Korea. A huge carrot: if the North Korean regime changes, they can end the war and work towards reunification with South Korea, meaning that there will be no more need for a U.S. military presence so close their border.
The other countries that help North Korea just because they have the U.S. as a common enemy, there isn’t a whole lot that can be done about that. But their support isn’t enough to keep the North Korean regime going anyway, especially if America is able to work on economically isolating them also. Go to China with the goal of toppling the North Korean regime in order to get U.S. troops out of Korea, and that regime is gone within 10 years. That should have been Trump’s approach, since he ran on an agenda of ending the whole “America as world police” thing anyway. Sadly it isn’t, we are stuck with another “agreement” that North Korea will never honor that Trump signed to advance his own short term political interests and the status quo over there will remain for who knows how long.
This isn’t making America great again folks. This is making things worse than they were before.
While I largely agree with you on this, I don’t think China would overtly disown N.K. The last thing China needs is those NK nukes pointed at Beijing or Shanghai. And if NK sees the writing on the wall who knows what they would do, but there is a good chance they wouldn’t go down peacefully.
Seeing as how I am an expert on foreign policy, my suggestion is to interdict their nuke capability by whatever means necessary, covertly if possible, and deal with the consequences. But it’s like the old “if you attack the king you better not miss” thing, you can’t screw that one up.
As much as it pains me to say, I agree with you and with Flake on this.
Trump’s got the North Korean government to say the same thing they said in 1992, and all he had to do was to elevate Kim and NK as equals in negotiation, gush about how Kim is so loved by his people and not mention human rights abuses, and place a moratorium on joint SK-USA military exercises.
Trump is entitled to some time, but at some point the where’s the beef question will need an answer.
When is Perdue running again? I would vote for my dog before him. He is worthless and dumb as a box of rocks. He cant even pander well