President Trump is right to build a friendship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. But Trump is wrong to yield to Chinese leader Xi Jinping in that same pursuit of friendship.
That was, however, the story of Trump’s weekend.
It didn’t start well. Seeking a trade deal with Xi, Trump made a grievous error. He lifted a ban on U.S. technology transfers to China’s Huawei telecommunications company. This is a huge win for Xi, who needs U.S. technology to turn Huawei into a global platform for Chinese power projection. Huawei, which doubles as a spy agency, is designed and operated in service of Xi’s ultimate objective: replacing America’s democratic rule-of-law based international order with a despotic order of Beijing’s making. And until this weekend, Trump tempered his affection for Xi to successfully deny Xi’s access to U.S. technology. Now Trump has given China a lifeline, because he believes Xi is his friend.
What has America gotten from it? Some short term financial market confidence. But considering the crackdown that is happening right now in Hong Kong, we make a grave error in assuming that Xi’s ambition of international order is compatible with our own.
The irony here is that Trump correctly applies the same friendship-based approach to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
In a historic moment on Sunday, Trump quite literally took a step toward Kim’s new affection. Doing so, Trump put American interests first.
Yes, North Korea’s human rights record is an ongoing atrocity of almost immeasurable terror. But Trump’s friendship with the tyrant is currently the only bulwark Americans, South Koreans, and Japan have from the Kim dynasty’s typical irrational behavior. When the alternative is a North Korea capable of launching nuclear warhead-armed ballistic missiles at every major American city, or a catastrophic new Korean war, then his partnership with Kim is the way to go. Trump knows he must persuade Kim that while America might be an unusual partner, it is one that has narrow interests with North Korea and can be trusted. Such persuasion will be crucial if Kim is to abandon the hardliners in his regime, to avoid new missile tests (which otherwise are coming), and verifiably end his threat to American security.
Thus, we have the story of a weekend — of a president who mistakes the importance of a friendship with one dictator, but recognizes its importance with the other.
