© Jonathan Ernst / ReutersNorth Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump signing a "historic" document in Singapore
But that's all ancient history now. The signed document - a declaration, not a 'deal', 'roadmap' or anything more - is brief:
Convinced that the establishment of new U.S.-DPRK relations will contribute to the peace and prosperity of the Korean Peninsula and of the world, and recognizing that mutual confidence building can promote the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un state the following:Trump apparently had the following video played at the end of the meeting:
- The United States and the DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea] commit to establish new U.S.-DPRK relations in accordance with the desire of the peoples of the two countries for peace and prosperity.
- The United States and the DPRK will join their efforts to build a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula.
- Reaffirming the April 27, 2018 Panmunjom Declaration, the DPRK commits to work towards the complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.
- The United States and the DPRK commit to recovering POW/MIA remains including the immediate repatriation of those already identified.
Call it gaudy or wishful thinking, but this messaging is so much better than "fire and fury".
So Trump apparently wants to 'bring the American Dream to North Korea'. The real deal-making potential for him lies in American firms being top of the queue for meeting North Korea's development needs. He surely realizes that - for historical, geographical and cultural reasons - the North Koreans are more likely to embrace the Chinese Dream over the American one, but Trump will not settle for the US being completely cut out of the picture. That's what we saw happen to US firms following the Iran Deal, and that's why Trump tore it up.
Kim apparently turned to Trump at one point during their meeting and said:
"Many people in the world will think of this as a form of fantasy from a science fiction movie."It is indeed historic, and whatever one thinks of Trump, or Kim for that matter, and whatever their 'real intentions', the very act of opening up before the world in this way makes fire, fury and missile attacks that much less likely. Not included in the document, but said by Trump afterwards, was that the US would "stop playing war games." Again, actions have to meet words, but it's clear that they have tangible meaning to Trump when he reveals that he's again thinking of the bottom line:
"The war games are very expensive, we pay for the majority of them."By the way, the basic Trump-Kim agreement for a freeze of US war games on and around the peninsula in exchange for a freeze in nuke/ICBM testing is exactly what China and Russia called for before last year's 'rocket hysterics' led into 'sanctions like never before'. What will happen to those sanctions now? UN-agreed sanctions on North Korea were a useful tool only because China and Russia also upheld them. Both countries have already called for the sanctions to end, arguing that they have done their job of 'bringing Kim to heel'. If the US is left unilaterally sanctioning North Korea for too long beyond this point, those American investment prospects will evaporate as North Korea bargains directly with its neighbors and the US is left looking like the sole unreasonable party - as is currently the case with the Iran Deal.
The losers, for now, are the deep staters and build-a-burgers in Japan, South Korea and Washington. They know nothing other than the post-WW2 Pax Americana and will resist entering uncharted territory without Uncle Sam taking the lead. They tried their best - with their 'Libya model' threats - to prevent this meeting from happening. The winners are the peoples of Korea, China and Russia. Trump gets kudos too, though it remains to be seen for what. Special peace prizes go to President Xi Jinping of China and Moon Jae-in of South Korea. One is also left wondering just what Putin - via Lavrov - said to Kim on the Russian state visit to the Hermit Kingdom just 10 days before this summit.
As we've said before, North Korea's nukes aren't really the issue. In fact, North Korea itself isn't the issue either. This is about the US foothold in East Asia - in South Korea, Japan and elsewhere - and what becomes of that foothold in a situation where China's star is rising and America's fading. Trump sees what Eurasian integration (BRICS, Belt and Road, SCO, etc) means for US domination of - in this case - 'our Pacific lake'. He wants to leverage US military advantages (while they still exist) in order to gradually replace the US military foothold in the region with a more constructive, profitable, and longer-lasting one: "We'll pull back our troops and guns, if you give us access to your market resources. There's no way we're abandoning the whole region to Chinese economic, and later military, domination."
Ironically, while China and Russia have responded positively to Trump's moves to transform - rather than remove - US presence in East Asia, it's a really hard sell for Trump on the domestic front because that military foothold was designed to 'contain' China, not 'do trade deals' with it. So Trump has to somehow convince US elites to get onboard with his plan to switch guns for iPhones and channel their warmongering impulses into something resembling a reasonably fair trade war with China.
I think he can pull it off. Nobody does deals like The Donald. Did you know he wrote a book about The Art of the Deal?
Reader Comments
"Give light, and the darkness will disappear of itself". -
Desiderius Erasmus
Bigly! [Link]
I overlooked kudos for Kim in making this happen.
Liberal-postmodernists everywhere are spitting about this. A good sign!
Globalresearch. Ca analysis of this deal doesn't seem so good. Hopefully it works out though
A comment for you.
This is indeed a historic event. Your " BTW " comment is key to it: "Special peace prizes go to President Xi Jinping of China and Moon Jae-in of South Korea. One is also left wondering just what Putin - via Lavrov - said to Kim on the Russian state visit to the Hermit Kingdom just 10 days before this summit."
In every country there are competing factions. People speak of "America" or "Britain" or "China" as if they are monolithic entities with a firm agenda. The only country which, more-or-less, speaks with one voice is Russia, thanks to Putin and the people he has surrounded himself with, and even he has to contend with dissidents (as in the oligarchs and Medvedev) promoting a different viewpoint and agenda.
People in the US State Department, the civilian leadership of the Pentagon, and the CIA, see the best way forward for the USA as World War III, assuming that the USA will emerge the most powerful survivor, just as in WWII. (The desk generals always fight the last war.) The military brass in the Pentagon sees it as Putin does, and as Einstein did, in that WWIII will have no winners, but will result in mutually assured destruction. Even while one faction in the USA is promoting anti-Russian hysteria, another faction in the US miltiary is determined to prevent it, and is in constant communication with their counterparts in the Russian military. These, after all, are the people who will have to do the fighting and dying on both sides after the civilians maneuver them into conflict.
What did Putin or Lavrov and Xi Jinping say to Kim Jong Un? We don't know, but I would bet that they told him that the time for games was over, and that to preserve himself, his country, and the world, he had to swallow his pride, stop posturing, and make a deal with this unstable person Trump, who is being manipulated by various competing factions in the US Deep State, some of whom are keen to see WWIII break out.
I don't want to get into a discussion of this topic with you, but suggest you take these facts - that in every country there are competing factions, and that some of these factions communicate with their opposite numbers in supposed or alleged enemy countries - into your consideration when analyzing what goes on in the world. Thank you.
- LG