Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un met, and there are the usual recriminations
and dire predictions from those Washington politicians and pundits who feel the
desperate need to find something wrong with anything Trump does. In fact, of course, this is just the opening
gambit in what will no doubt be a long and complex negotiation over the coming
years. Both sides made conciliatory moves that didn’t really cost them
anything. Kim “destroyed” a nuclear test site that was already unusable after
his last nuclear test apparently collapsed much of its underground infrastructure.
Trump halted the annual joint US-Korean military exercises, which were in any
case just posturing showpieces, and expensive ones at that, but didn’t in any way reduce the strength of the joint US-Korean
forces.
Nothing really has happened yet. Kim hasn’t given up his
nuclear weapons program and Trump hasn’t eased the sanctions one bit. But both sides
got a propaganda coup for their bases, and certainly a dialogue has now
started, which is better than war. I would expect Kim to drive a hard bargain,
and I would expect Trump to drive just as hard a bargain. No doubt there will
be further posturing ahead, with one or both sides walking away from the
negotiations from time to time, just like hagglers in a Middle Eastern market
(as Trump has already done once). And no doubt Washington insiders and the
media will continue to “view with alarm” every step.
But in fact Trump has managed to do what his predecessors
were unable or unwilling to do – bring Kim to the negotiating table. That is a laudable
first step. Let’s see where that takes us.
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