Trump gave the North Korean leader his moment in the sun, a presidential handshake against he backdrop of the U.S. flag on equal footing with the DPRK flag.
Trump just legitimized Kim's brutal behavior and reign, and signed a four-point agreement that lacked any substance.
With all the pomp and circumstance surrounding the North Korean summit in Singapore, it wasn't a stretch that some sort of cursory agreement would be made.
- The United States and the DPRK commit to establish new US-DPRK relations in accordance with the desire of the peoples of the two countries for peace and prosperity. (DPRK stands for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the formal name of North Korea.)
- The US 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 toward the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
- The US and the DPRK commit to recovering POW/MIA remains including the immediate repatriation of those already identified.
This is about as vague an agreement as possible. And remember, similar earlier deals were abandoned by the North Koreans in 2009.
Since there were no note takers allowed as the two leaders talked privately, there is no way to verify what was actually said or agreed upon.
I find it horrifying that experts on television threw around words like "war" so easily between the two countries and yes, this is better than having threats of nuclear carnage, of course.
However, Trump said a lot more in his presser and admitted giving up cents on the dollars.
In exchange for giving him very nice and handsome and thin photos, Trump is asking for sanctions on NOKO to be lifted and is putting a halt to military exercises which he bizarrely called "war games" between the U.S. and South Korea.
No verification was required.
And he didn't stop there. Not only did he agree with North Korea, but he smeared the entirety of our military exercises with South Korea as a complete waste of time and money.
Trump said, "We will stop the war games which will save us a tremendous amount of money. Unless and until we see the future negotiations are not going along like it should. We will be saving a tremendous amount of money. Plus. It is very provocative."
He continued later on,"We fly in bombers from Guam. I said where do the bombers come from? Guam. Nearby. I said great. Where is nearby? Six and a half hours. That’s a long time for these big massive planes to be flying to South Korea to practice and drop bombs all over the place and go back to Guam. I know a lot about airplanes. Very expensive. I didn’t like it."
"What I did say is and I think it is provocative. I have to tell you, Jennifer, it is a provocative situation. When I see that and you have a country right next door. Under the circumstances, we are negotiating a comprehensive and complete deal. It is inappropriate to have war games. Number one, we save money. A lot. Number two, it is really something they very much appreciated."
Even the South Korean president has no idea what Trump is talking about.
President Moon Jae-in office released this statement, "At this moment, we need to figure out President Trump’s accurate meaning and intention.”
You would think South Korea would be in the know the entire time.
Ian Bremmer told CBS that China got everything they wanted.
And Bruce Klingner from The Heritage Foundation was not happy at all.
At the same time, this was a singularly absurd spectacle, as well as one of the strangest episodes in the history of cable news, a real-life anime exercise to rival all those shots of an empty podium that so enthralled the nation during the 2016 presidential campaign. Endless shots of an empty road in Singapore, “live coverage” of a closed-door meeting, of which there is no official record, between two of the most notorious bad-faith artists ever to lead sovereign nations. Meanwhile, pundits in Washington, D.C., practiced their remote viewing skills on camera.
