As Secretary of State Mike Pompeo concludes his latest visit to Pyongyang, North Korea, it is time for President Trump to drop his rosy talk about Kim Jong Un, which has become less and less convincing, and demand that the tyrant demonstrate that he wants a serious deal that furthers the cause of international peace.
Trump brought America’s ardent enemy to the negotiating table, for which he will deserve credit if it produces results. But North Korea continues its research on technology for ballistic missile engines and targeting, on re-entry vehicles to deliver nuclear warheads, and on the weaponization of nuclear materials. These activities not only threaten America, but also embolden Kim and teach him that he can gain concessions at little or no cost.
There is no question that Trump has made more concessions to Pyongyang than vice versa. Kim has gained new international prestige, South Korea has come to endorse an overt policy of appeasement, sanctions are being undercut, new sanctions have been deferred, and the U.S. has postponed shows of strength in the region.
At the same time, Kim has been given little incentive to make concessions, for Trump has praised him without asking anything solid in return. Trump’s bragging has told Pyongyang that it can gain much by giving nothing.
North Korea’s suspended ballistic missile tests are not evidence of major concessions. Expert analysts believe its missile program is now so advanced that it can be completed in factories that Kim has hidden across the country. The next time he fires an ICBM might prove its nuclear strike capability.
Equally, North Korea’s theatrical re-destruction of already-destroyed nuclear tests sites indicates a continuation of its traditional deceptiveness. During decades of duplicity, North Korean officials have learned that Washington won’t increase pressure if the North is doing enough to look to untrained American domestic opinion like it is at least doing something. In Trump’s case, the showy change was in suspending missile tests, praise from an otherwise capricious North Korean state media, and images of explosions in mountain range hideouts.
It looks good but means nothing.
Trump rightly criticizes his predecessors for failing to grapple with North Korea. Yet Trump, by claiming victories, he is showing the same credulity at the expense of credibility. The president must urgently re-balance negotiations.
He should deliver a simple message to Kim that within the next two weeks, the North must allow International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors to interview North Korean ballistic missile scientists and inspect sites of nuclear and ballistic missile concern. While those inspections can’t provide a full accounting of North Korean programs, they will serve two important objectives.
First, the inspectors will start the external accounting of North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Second, they will show that Kim is willing to anger hardliners around him who want inspectors kept far away from the most prized sites. Together, these two steps would lend needed credibility to Trump’s strategy.
Trump prides himself on deal-making. A deal that brings peace on the Korean Peninsula would be an historical achievement. Now is the time not to claim an empty victory, but to begin closing the deal, by making Kim open his books.
