Hosting a dinner for top South Korean officials in Pyongyang on Sunday evening, Kim Jong Un added meat to the message that the two Korean governments are sucking up to each other. But while both nations have their own reasons for the love-in, the North Korean agenda remains as malicious as ever.
Kim Jong Un hasn’t just had a change of heart. He hasn’t simply decided that he prefers to share stories over Kimchi to threatening Seoul with nuclear annihilation. What Kim is actually doing is buying time for his intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM program, by separating South Korea from the U.S. “maximum pressure” strategy. Kim believes that if South Korea continues to actively resist tougher U.S. diplomatic, economic, or military action against him, the probability of unilateral U.S. action will be greatly reduced. In turn, Kim wants South Korea to believe that its best chance for peace will come through its appeasement of him.
And the North Korean comrade is succeeding.
Under Chinese influence, the South Koreans are separating themselves from Trump’s strategy. In doing so, Seoul is showing that it believes a North Korea armed with ICBMs with nuclear warheads is an acceptable price for peace. This is the antithesis of the U.S. strategic conception of North Korea’s threat. And with an actionable North Korean ICBM-plus-warhead program likely less than six months away, each moment that Pyongyang avoids new sanctions offers Kim new insulation with which to perfect his warhead re-entry vehicle and terminal stage targeting capabilities. This is an obvious problem for the U.S.
As such, Trump should reject South Korean requests that Washington strike a more relaxed approach to North Korea. As Yonhap news reports, the officials who dined with Kim last night will shortly travel to Washington, presumably in an attempt to persuade Trump that their appeasement is making progress.
Instead, Trump should embarrass the South Koreans by waiting until they land in Washington and then announcing sanctions on Chinese financial entities. The president should also pledge that a North Korea nuclear ICBM program remains absolutely incompatible with U.S. security interests. The key here would be to put the South Koreans on notice that U.S. maximum pressure is not dependent on their own policy.
Fortunately, Trump has just given himself a boost with his announcement of new tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. That’s because witnessing Trump’s deep unpredictability and his willingness to upset their interests, China and South Korea have been reminded that the U.S. president is capable of just about anything. As they decide their next steps towards Pyongyang, they will thus be aware that Trump’s threat of military action against Pyongyang cannot be taken lightly. They’ll also be more predisposed to increasing their pressure on Kim in the fear that if they do not, Trump may launch military strikes.
For his part, Trump can’t afford to let South Korea help Kim Jong Un run out the clock at the expense of critical U.S. security interests.
