White House Follows Trump’s Example In Rejecting Talks With North Korea

This past Monday—a day after U.S President Donald Trump tweeted out how he believed that diplomatic communications with North Korea are a “waste of time”—White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, defended the President’s weekend tweets, in a move serving to undermine Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s approach to the escalating crisis with Pyongyang. Sanders said that the White House has been “clear that now is not the right time to talk” with North Korea. She added that conversations with the Kim regime were limited to discussions over the return of Americans detained in that country, including Otto Warbier, who died in June shortly after his return from a 17-month imprisonment spell in North Korea. “Beyond that,” she said, “there will be no conversations with North Korea at this time.”

These comments contrast with Secretary Tillerson’s optimistic words, which had up until last Sunday provided an opening for future talks with North Korea. Speaking in Beijing on Saturday, during an official visit—in what is a  precursor to President Trump’s visit later in November—Tillerson told reporters that the State Department was “probing” through direct channels with North Korea, whether they would be open to talks and what conditions. “We ask, ‘Would you like to talk?’ We have lines of communications to Pyongyang. We’re not in a dark situation, a blackout. We have a couple, three, channels open to Pyongyang; we can talk to them; we do talk to them,” Tillerson said. “Stay tuned,” he added. One could be forgiven in interpreting those words as an invitation for potential talks, despite Pyongyang’s defiant behaviour over the last year.

Worst still, the contradictory statements will add fuel to the notion that President Trump’s impulsiveness and his administration’s overall lack of a cohesive message, could put to bed any hopes of constructive dialogue between Pyongyang and Washington. For the U.S’ allies, who face growing uncertainty from a security standpoint, given Trump’s tweet, which may or may not have been intended to undermine Mr. Tillerson’s diplomatic efforts, the mixed-messaging on display during the past few days will likely prove to them how much of a liability the current Trump administration has become. Where one would expect restraint, one has come to witness bellicosity instead. On occasions where it would seem wise to offer a carrot instead of a stick, the administration has on numerous occasions doubled-down on both aggressiveness and intransigence. Such was the case earlier in the summer, at the height of the ongoing Gulf Crisis, where Rex Tillerson’s mediating efforts were somewhat crippled by the Trump’s comments, which set the tone for that particular diplomatic falling-out. Several months later, we are witnessing similar US behaviour in another crisis, albeit one with wider and more immediate consequences for the international community as a whole.  

It is also worth mentioning that the White House’s stance is unsurprising, considering how in recent times, it has made a concerted effort to add pressure on North Korea. It is also safe to say that not much has changed, with the regime so far, refusing to halt its nuclear missile tests. In early September, it drafted a resolution which was swiftly ratified by the UN Security Council, issuing a new package of sanctions on North Korea’s textile exports and capping imports of crude oil. That was in response to Pyongyang’s missile launch over Hokkaido, Japan—it crashed into the sea about 1,200km to the east. It was a follow-up to a hydrogen bomb test carried out by the regime on September 3rd. These moves not only indicate that North Korea is willing to defy growing international pressure—it also demonstrates the hermit country’s ever-improving nuclear capabilities. Following Trump’s widely criticized speech to the UN General Assembly, the regime followed up with a threat to detonate a hydrogen bomb in the Pacific Ocean.  Such behaviour has led to threats of more diplomatic actions and possible military options by the US. Most recently the US Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, stated that the Security Council had run out of options on containing North Korea’s nuclear program.

As mentioned in a previous article by this writer, what has been most glaring about the present crisis are the lack of incentives being presented to North Korea, in order to compel it to engage in much-need-dialogue. The absence of such incentives has been worsened by potential credibility issues the administration faces, as a result of President Trump’s repeated threats to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal. The mere notion that the U.S would consider backing out of the hard-fought nuclear agreement—to which Iran has so far been compliant—would be damaging to both its reputation and credibility in the eyes of not only Iran, but other would-be negotiating partners as well (including North Korea). That appears to be a view shared by some members of the administration at the moment—just last week the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph Dunford warned that it “makes sense to me that our holding up agreements that we have signed, unless there’s a material breach, would have an impact on other’s willingness to sign agreements.” Those words and the message they convey—that the US lives up to side of an agreement—could help demonstrate to the North Koreans, that despite the President’s and the White House’s statements to the contrary, diplomatic talks are still possible and the U.S can be trusted to honor any future agreement between the two countries. Failure to do so could see Trump follow in the footsteps of Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama who all “failed” (according to Mr. Trump) to contain North Korea and the threat it poses, a fate that he will surely want to avoid at all costs.

Arthur Jamo
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