Unfortunately, it’s not clear that the Trump team understand the basics of negotiations, as Leon Sigal implies on 38 North:
While the Trump administration demanded that the North move first, reportedly by providing a complete inventory of its nuclear material and production facilities, the North countered with the demand that Washington join South Korea in declaring an end to the Korean War. The declaration would commit to initiating a peace process that would include military confidence building measures to reduce the risk of deadly clashes in the contested waters of the West (Yellow) Sea and the Demilitarized Zone and culminate in a formal peace treaty.
The administration contends that the North wants the peace declaration before taking steps to denuclearize, but as North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho told ASEAN foreign ministers in early August, “We believe that a method involving the balanced, simultaneous, step-by-step implementation of all terms in the Joint Statement, preceded by the establishment of trust, is the only realistic means of achieving success.” He emphasized the North’s “unswerving resolution and commitment to responsible, good-faith implementation of the Joint Statement,” and the “unacceptability of a situation in which we alone are the first to move unilaterally.”
His statement is just the latest indication that a deal is possible if the United States is prepared to accept a peace declaration. Seeking a nuclear inventory in return will only initiate a long period of uncertainty, however, with little benefit to the US and allied security while Washington tries to verify that inventory and while North Korean manufacture of fissile material and missiles runs free. A better starting point for Washington to seek is a suspension of the production of plutonium, highly enriched uranium, and intercontinental- and intermediate-range missiles, along with a declaration of the locations of related production sites.
Giving in to the demands of a dictator would make Trump look weak, and upset those in his base who see North Korea as a slave state, which is not necessarily wrong. It’s certainly an alien ideology to the West, and one I would consider unstable as it depends on the temperament of exactly one person.
And, yet, sometimes one must compromise in order to make progress towards an ultimate goal. Will agreeing to ending the Korean War constitute progress towards transforming North Korea from a war machine to a democracy? Or would Kim continue to reign unimpeded? These are the hard questions facing every American President, and, in Trump’s case, it may be complicated by the expectations of his base. Common right-wing expressions that Obama was terribly weak, especially in the face of contradictory indicators, may make Trump’s goals that much more difficult to reach.
